Refocus: the Films of William Castle (ReFocus: The American Directors)
Often described as 'the Master of Gimmicks', William Castle is best known for the outrageous publicity stunts that characterised his genre films in the 1950s and '60s, including offers for an insurance policy against death by fright, vibrating seats, a skeleton that flew over the audience, and a 'punishment poll' to determine a film's conclusion. But far from being 'the world's craziest filmmaker', Castle was also a dependable studio director who made more than 50 films between 1944 and 1974, an...
Vampires, Race, and Transnational Hollywoods (Traditions in American Cinema)
by Dale Hudson
The figure of the vampire serves as both object and mode of analysis for more than a century of Hollywood filmmaking. Never dying, shifting shape and moving at unnatural speed, as the vampire renews itself by drinking victims' blood, so too does Hollywood renew itself by consuming foreign styles and talent, moving to overseas locations, and proliferating in new guises.In Vampires, Race, and Transnational Hollywoods, Dale Hudson explores the movement of transnational Hollywood's vampires, between...
Kubrick's Mitteleuropa
Stanley Kubrick was arguably one of the most influential American directors of the post-World War II era, and his Central European Jewish heritage, though often overlooked, greatly influenced his oeuvre. Kubrick's Mitteleuropa explores this influence in ways that range from his work with Hungarian and Polish composers Bela Bartok, György Ligeti, and Krzysztof Penderecki to the visual inspiration of artists such as Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and other central European Modernists. Beyond explor...
We are imprisoned in circadian rhythms, as well as in our life reviews that follow chronological and causal links. For the majority of us our lives are vectors directed toward aims that we strive to reach and delimited by our birth and death. Nevertheless, we can still experience fleeting moments during which we forget the past and the future, as well as the very flow of time. During these intense emotions, we burst out laughing or crying, or we scream with pleasure, or we are mesmerized by a wo...
The absorbing story of how one of the greatest directors of our time began his film-making career 'Ray's fascinating account of how he made the (Apu) trilogy and how his passion for cinema was first kindled.' -India Today 'Written in an impeccable style it brings back memories of an era when film-making was an art born out of a love for the medium and not merely a means to make money. -Sunday Mail 'My Years With Apu prompts wistful thoughts of those other books, the other Ray masterpieces that...
Tarkovsky
by Andrei A. Tarkovsky, Hans-Joachim Schlegel, and Lothar Schirmer
Andrei Tarkovsky was a Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor and film theorist. He directed the first five of his seven films – Ivan’s Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Mirror and Stalker – in the Soviet Union, but left for Italy in 1982, where he shot Nostalghia. His last film, Sacrifice, was produced in Sweden in 1985. His work is characterized by spirituality and metaphysical themes, very long takes, an absence of conventional dramatic structure and plot, and his own distinctive style of ci...
Latin American Women Filmmakers (World Cinema)
by Deborah Martin and Deborah Shaw
Latin American women filmmakers have achieved unprecedented international prominence in recent years. Notably political in their approach, figures such as Lucrecia Martel, Claudia Llosa and Bertha Navarro have created innovative and often challenging films, enjoying global acclaim from critics and festival audiences alike. They undeniably mark a 'moment' for Latin American cinema.Bringing together distinguished scholars in the field - and prefaced by B. Ruby Rich - this is a much-needed account...
The Mystical Gaze of the Cinema (Academic Monographs)
by Richard Leonard
'Magical', 'out of this world', 'an experience you'll never forget': Peter Weir's films have enthralled audiences around the globe. Whether in iconic Australian works such as Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli or international mainstream thrillers such as Witness, Weir has deliberately created mystical movie experiences. Modern cinema studies is used to dissecting films on the basis of gender, class or race: now, for the first time, Richard Leonard shows that a mystical gaze also exists and is...
A critical exploration of one of the most exciting, original and influential figures to emerge in contemporary film, Guillermo del Toro: Film as Alchemic Art is a major contribution to the analysis of Guillermo del Toro's cinematic output. It offers an in-depth discussion of del Toro's oeuvre and investigates key ideas, recurrent motifs and subtle links between his movies. The book explores the sources that del Toro draws upon and transforms in the creation of his rich and complex body of work....
Jia Zhangke Speaks Out is a collection of writings by China's most acclaimed film director, Jia Zhangke. The book, originally published in 2009 by Peking University Press, contains Jia's selections of his own writings on film. While he has given numerous film-specific interviews throughout the years, his own notes on cinema, on his own production, and on Chinese culture are unknown to non-Chinese readers. This collection gives access to the key scenes of his life, films, and meetings with other...
The author, who knew Jarman during the 1980s, provides an account of the film-maker's life and works, from the home movies through the pop videos to the feature films, including Caravaggio and Blue. Jarman is shown as an ambitious film-maker who always challenged received categories.
Covering all of Gilliam's work from Monty Python's Flying Circus to the 1998 big screen version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The book is fabulously illustrated featuring many previously unseen photographs, storyboards and drawing from Gilliam's private archive. Each chapter features an interview with Gilliam which gets his take on the work. Chapters include Early Years: childhood and early collaborations with John Cleese and Woody Allan; Monty Python - for the first time Gilliam talks abou...
The film-maker Robert Rodriguez describes how he made El Mariachi for $7000, demonstrating many ways in which a film-maker can do for nothing what professionals spend thousands of dollars doing without a second thought.
A film-maker's diary with a difference. Written by Wim Wenders, one of Europe's leading directors, this is the account of how he helped bring Beyond the Clouds, Antonioni's final film, into being. Beyond the Clouds was Michaelangelo Antonioni's first film for 15 years. The long gap was caused by a debilitating stroke which left him incapable of communicating through speech. However, he was determined to carry on making films and eventually managed to convince financiers that this was still possi...
Ken Loach is one of Britain's most distinguished, and respected, film-makers, whose career embraces both film and television. His landmark TV production of Cathy Come Home caused such an outcry over the plight of the homeless that the housing charity Shelter was established in response. Loach's film work - such as Kes - is a remarkable as his television work. He makes tough, uncompromising films about a beleaguered working class, but with a poetry (as in Kes) and a humanity soaked in humour (as...
Get ready to see inside the secret world of Gerry Anderson's 21st century vehicles, machinery and settings. This complete definitive collection of Graham Bleathman's cutaways includes detailed images from Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Captain Scarlet and Joe 90, plus less well known craft and locations seen only in the comic strips. The perfect book for Gerry Anderson collectors, fans of his shows and comic fans alike.
The Griffith Project, Volume 8 (The Griffith Project Vols 1-12)
by Paolo Cherchi Usai
No other silent film director has been as extensively studied as D. W. Griffith. However, only a small group of his more than five hundred films has been the subject of a systematic analysis, and the vast majority of his other works still await proper examination. For the first time in film studies, the complete creative output of Griffith - from "Professional Jealousy "(1907) to "The" "Struggle "(1931) - will be explored in this multivolume collection of contributions from an international team...
Foreword by Cate Blanchett With contributions by Geoffrey Rush, Baz Luhrmann, Miranda Otto and Hugo Weaving amongst others. From the writings of Keith Bain, Michael Campbell has collated a step-by-step course for students and teachers on the principles and practice of Australia’s great teacher of Movement. In simple language he lays out the secrets of self-knowledge that lie behind understanding the body and mind. ‘Movement’, says Bain, ‘is both how we move and what moves us, Movement is the l...
After more than five decades in Hollywood, Don Bluth, the man behind some of the most iconic animated films ever made, tells his story. Don Bluth never felt like a Donald. So people have always called him Don. A matinee of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs awakened something within him. Despite growing up in rural Texas and Utah, he practiced and worked hard to become an Hollywood animator. And after working alongside his idol Walt Disney, and on films including Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the...
Scripting Hitchcock explores the collaborative process between Alfred Hitchcock and the screenwriters he hired to write the scripts for three of his greatest films: Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie. Drawing from extensive interviews with the screenwriters and other film technicians who worked for Hitchcock, Walter Raubicheck and Walter Srebnick illustrate how much of the filmmaking process took place not on the set or in front of the camera, but in the adaptation of the sources, the mutual creation...