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Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace, one of the world's greatest film epics, originated as a consequence of the Cold War. Conceived as a response to King Vidor's War and Peace, Bondarchuk's surpassed that film in every way, giving the USSR one small victory in the cultural Cold War for hearts and minds. This book, taking up Bondarchuk's masterpiece as a Cold War film, an epic, a literary adaptation, a historical drama, and a rival to Vidor's Hollywood version, recovers--and expands--a lost chapter...

Rocha critically examines contemporary cinematic representations of Argentine masculinities produced after the 1990s when the Argentine state experienced crucial changes that affected both the social construction of gender and the financing of domestic film productions. Theoretically innovative, this study provides detailed analysis of six Argentine blockbusters. Interdisciplinary and written in an engaging style, Masculinities in Contemporary Argentine Popular Cinemais the first scholarly work...

Hollywood Remembrance and American War addresses the synergy between Hollywood war films and American forms of war remembrance. Subjecting the notion that war films ought to be considered ʻthe war memorials of today’ to critical scrutiny, the book develops a theoretical understanding of how Hollywood war films, as rhetorical sites of remembering and memory, reflect, replicate and resist American modes of remembrance. The authors first develop the framework for, and elaborate on, the co-evoluti...

Richard Matheson (1926-2013) was a prolific author and screenwriter whose career helped shape the horror and fantasy genres in literature, film, and television for over sixty years. Matheson authored more than ninety short stories and dozens of novels, many of which-including I Am Legend, A Stir of Echoes, What Dreams May Come, The Shrinking Man, Hell House, and Bid Time Return-have been adapted into feature films. Despite his extensive body of work and influence, however, Matheson has remained...

American media is the subject of constant critique. The seeming exaltation of violence, sex, and illicit themes creates virulent opponents of the media and its content. But could it be that the American experiment--even the quest to fulfill the American Dream--actually encourages media to act in a way that deserves these critiques? Probing deep into the canon of all things screen, Thomas Hibbs uncovers the disturbing truths about the contemporary media landscape. Beneath the shallow facade of e...

This is a unique study of the film musical, a global cinema tradition. The musical is one of cinema's few genuinely international genres but it has never been studied as a global sensation. This book fills this critical gap in film studies as it brings together musicals from 15 nations in order to highlight running themes. Musicals are often studied as part of distinct national traditions that are interpreted as native. However this anthology will dispute previous approaches to reveal the influe...

To choose life or not to choose life; that is the question. Enjoyed the film? Want to know more? Go behind the scenes with the ultimate film guides and get the bigger picture. Discover how Trainspotting broke new ground within British cinema and became the highest placed film of the 1990's. Understand how the film related to the 90's culture of Britpop and 'Cool Britannia' and how music played an important role in the significance of certain scenes. Consider the film's importance within Briti...

Hollywood, movies, and the silver screen were once synonymous, but sweeping changes in the film industry over the last two decades have revolutionized everything from film distribution (video, network TV, cable and pay-cable) to marketing and spin-offs (toys, games, books, theme park rides) to ownership and control of the major studios. This wide-ranging book delves into all these areas to offer a major new assessment of the filmed entertainment industry as it positions itself for the twenty-fir...

A Companion to Chinese Cinema is a collection of original essays written by experts in a range of disciplines that provide a comprehensive overview of the evolution and current state of Chinese cinema. Represents the most comprehensive coverage of Chinese cinema to dateApplies a multidisciplinary approach that maps the expanding field of Chinese cinema in bold and definitive waysDraws attention to previously neglected areas such as diasporic filmmaking, independent documentary, film styles and...

Steven Spielberg is known as the most powerful man in New Hollywood and a pioneer of the contemporary blockbuster, America's most successful export. His career began a new chapter in mass culture. At the same time, American post war liberalism was breaking down. This fascinating new book explains the complex relationship between film and politics through the prism of an iconic filmmaker. Spielberg's early films were a triumphant emergence of the Sunbelt aesthetic that valued visceral kicks...

Movies have never been the same since MTV. While the classic symphonic film score promised direct insight into a character's mind, the expanded role of popular music has made more ambiguous the question of when, if ever, we are allowed to see or share a character's emotions. As a result, the potential for irony and ambiguity has multiplied exponentially, and characterization and narrative capacities have fragmented. At the most basic level, this new aesthetic has required filmgoers to renegotiat...

Nonfiction films about sports have been around for decades, yet few scholarly articles have been published on these works. In Identity and Myth in Sports Documentaries, editors Zachary Ingle and David M. Sutera have assembled a collection of essays that show how myth and identity-national, religious, ethnic, and racial-are constructed, perpetuated, or questioned in documentaries produced in the United States, France, Australia, Germany, and Japan. This collection is divided into three sections....