"There was something about Robert Aldrich's artistic temperament that enabled him to transcend the apparent vulgarity of so many of his motion picutres. Besides the great films, such as Kiss Me Deadly which is certainly one of the finest examples of film noir, are several little-seen or underrated later works such as the revisionist Western, Ulzana's Raid, the gangster love story, The Grissom Gang, or the grim cop picture, Hustle. Aldrich's career has long deserved the detailed evaluation which this book provides." - Andrew Sarris
In this collection of interviews, the filmmaker tells fascinating stories of making motion pictures with such film legends as Burt Lancaster, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Burt Reynolds, and many others
The critical story of thirteen empires, showing their key role in the foundation of today’s global civilization. For over five hundred years, empires have been a feature of the political landscape, and today, many contemporary conflicts resonate with issues tied to colonial conquest and the uneasy situations they produced. Empires evoke potent images: Henry Morton Stanley, David Livingstone, and the gallery of colonial explorers; the Spanish conquistadors’ quest for gold and silver; and the Dutch heritage of trade in the East Indies. These legacies still pose major issues for historians who study their key role in the foundation of today’s global civilization. The Age of Empires frames the era of empires with maps of explorations, chronologies of voyages, records of settlers and administrators, the balance sheets of commerce, and other records that made up the Age of Empires. This account incorporates research from across the globe and vivid illustrations to tell a story full of conflict, cruelty, great journeys, and influence.
Through an explanation of forty figures in European culture, ^The Seduction of the Mediterranean argues that the Mediterranean, classical and contemporary, was the central theme in homoerotic writing and art from the 1750s to the 1950s. Episodes of exile, murder, drug-taking, wild homosexual orgies and court cases are woven into an original study of a significant theme in European culture. The myth of a homoerotic Mediterranean made a major contribution to general attitudes towards Antiquity, the Renaissance and modern Italy and Greece.
Colonialism and Homosexuality is a thorough investigation of the connections of homosexuality and imperialism from the late 1800s - the era of 'new imperialism' - until the era of decolonization. Robert Aldrich reconstructs the context of a number of liaisons, including those of famous men such as Cecil Rhodes, E.M. Forster or André Gide, and the historical situations which produced both the Europeans and their non-Western lovers. Colonial lands, which in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century included most of Africa, South and Southeast Asia and the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Caribbean, provided a haven for many Europeans whose sexual inclinations did not fit neatly into the constraints of European society. Each of the case-studies is a micro-history of a particular colonial situation, a sexual encounter, and its wider implications for cultural and political life. Students both of colonial history, and of gender and queer studies, will find this an informative read.
Austin’s thriving film culture, renowned for international events such as SXSW and the Austin Film Festival, extends back to the early 1970s when students in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin ran a film programming unit that screened movies for students and the public. Dubbed CinemaTexas, the program offered viewers a wide variety of films—old and new, mainstream, classic, and cult—at a time when finding and watching films after their first run was very difficult and prohibitively expensive. For each film, RTF graduate students wrote program notes that included production details, a sampling of critical reactions, and an original essay that placed the film and its director within context and explained the movie’s historical significance. Over time, CinemaTexas Program Notes became more ambitious and were distributed around the world, including to luminaries such as film critic Pauline Kael. This anthology gathers a sampling of CinemaTexas Program Notes, organized into four sections: “USA Film History,” “Hollywood Auteurs,” “Cinema-Fist: Renegade Talents,” and “America’s Shadow Cinema.” Many of the note writers have become prominent film studies scholars, as well as leading figures in the film, TV, music, and video game industries. As a collection, CinemaTexas Notes strongly contradicts the notion of an effortlessly formed American film canon, showing instead how local film cultures—whether in Austin, New York, or Europe—have forwarded the development of film studies as a discipline.
This book gives a voice to more than eighty people from every major continent and from all walks of life. It includes poets and philosophers, rulers and spies, activists and artists. Alongside such celebrated figures as Michelangelo, Frederick the Great and Harvey Milk are lesser-known but no less surprising individuals: Dong Xian and the Chinese emperor Ai, whose passion flourished in the 1st century BC; the unfortunate Robert De Péronne, first to be burned at the stake for sodomy; Katharine Philips, writing proto-lesbian poetry in seventeenth-century England; and 'Aimee' and 'Jaguar', whose love defied the death camps of wartime Germany. With many striking illustrations, Gay Life Stories will entertain, give pause for thought, and ultimately celebrate the diversity of human history.
The Routledge History of Western Empires is an all new volume focusing on the history of Western Empires in a comparative and thematic perspective. Comprising of thirty-three original chapters arranged in eight thematic sections, the book explores European overseas expansion from the Age of Discovery to the Age of Decolonisation. Studies by both well-known historians and new scholars offer fresh, accessible perspectives on a multitude of themes ranging from colonialism in the Arctic to the scramble for the coral sea, from attitudes to the environment in the East Indies to plans for colonial settlement in Australasia. Chapters examine colonial attitudes towards poisonous animals and the history of colonial medicine, evangelisaton in Africa and Oceania, colonial recreation in the tropics and the tragedy of the slave trade. The Routledge History of Western Empires ranges over five centuries and crosses continents and oceans highlighting transnational and cross-cultural links in the imperial world and underscoring connections between colonial history and world history. Through lively and engaging case studies, contributors not only weigh in on historiographical debates on themes such as human rights, religion and empire, and the ‘taproots’ of imperialism, but also illustrate the various approaches to the writing of colonial history. A vital contribution to the field.
This comprehensive and authoritative book is about the last colonies, those remaining territories formally dependent on metropolitan powers. It discusses the surprisingly large number of these territories, mainly small isolated islands with limited resources. Yet these places are not as obscure as might be expected. They may be major tourist destinations, military bases, satellite tracking stations, tax havens or desolate, underpopulated spots that can become international flashpoints, such as the Falklands. The authors find that at a time of escalating nationalism and globalization, these remnants of empire provide insights into the meanings of political, economic, legal and cultural independence, as well as sovereignty and nationhood. This book provides a broad-based and provocative discussion of colonialism and interdependence in the modern world, from a unique perspective.
