Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons

Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons PDF Author: John David Ebert
Publisher: Cybereditions Corporation
ISBN: 9781877275746
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
John David Ebert's Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons examines how movies since the late 1960s have developed a "myth of the machine" for our contemporary society. Modern technology, Ebert argues, has created a new environment which raises problems that our modern myths, in celluloid form, attempt to resolve by presenting a number of possible scenarios ranging from "demolition" of the machine, as in The Lord of the Rings, to "symbiosis," as in the Star Wars films. Ebert examines films such as Apocalypse Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Videodrome, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and A.I. for answers to the question how modern man can retain his humanity while living in a society which is increasingly dominated by the technology he has created.

Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons

Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons PDF Author: John David Ebert
Publisher: Cybereditions Corporation
ISBN: 9781877275746
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
John David Ebert's Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons examines how movies since the late 1960s have developed a "myth of the machine" for our contemporary society. Modern technology, Ebert argues, has created a new environment which raises problems that our modern myths, in celluloid form, attempt to resolve by presenting a number of possible scenarios ranging from "demolition" of the machine, as in The Lord of the Rings, to "symbiosis," as in the Star Wars films. Ebert examines films such as Apocalypse Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Videodrome, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and A.I. for answers to the question how modern man can retain his humanity while living in a society which is increasingly dominated by the technology he has created.

Phantasmagoria

Phantasmagoria PDF Author: Marina Warner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199299943
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
With over thirty illustrations in color and black and white, Phantasmagoria takes readers on an intellectually exhilarating tour of ideas of spirit and soul in the modern world, illuminating key questions of imagination and cognition. Warner tells the unexpected and often disturbing story about shifts in thought about consciousness and the individual person, from the first public waxworks portraits at the end of the eighteenth century to stories of hauntings, possession, and loss of self in modern times. She probes the perceived distinctions between fantasy and deception, and uncovers a host of spirit forms--angels, ghosts, fairies, revenants, and zombies--that are still actively present in contemporary culture.

Fathers and Sons in Cinema

Fathers and Sons in Cinema PDF Author: Gershon Reiter
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 078643788X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Popular American films are replete with story lines which involve the father-son relationship, often as the pivotal conflict or dragon which a hero must overcome to achieve success. Sometimes these conflicts are straightforward; other times they are projections of the central character's unconscious becoming conscious--in essence a modern form of myth. These American "filmmyths" serve as a visual means to project the psyche in an entertaining and easily accessible manner. Focusing on mythic structure, this volume explores 12 popular movies that deal with various aspects of the father-son relationship including the process of becoming a father, absent fathers, the rite of passage, and the turmoil between fathers and adolescents. Films examined include The Wizard of Oz, Back to the Future, Stand By Me, Red River, City Slickers, North by Northwest, E.T. the Extraterrestrial, Field of Dreams, Lone Star, The Lion King, Jurassic Park and The Searchers.

Dead Celebrities, Living Icons

Dead Celebrities, Living Icons PDF Author: John David Ebert
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
This in-depth series of literary portraits studies celebrities who died in famous and tragic ways—ways that still resonate as archetypal death scenarios in present day. We know their likes and dislikes, admire their talents, envy them for daring to be what we can't or what we won't. When they are snatched from us, we feel a personal loss and an unwillingness to let go. And so we transform these mere human beings into icons whose stars often shine in death even more brilliantly than in life. Dead Celebrities, Living Icons: Tragedy and Fame in the Age of the Multimedia Superstar explores this phenomenon through a series of essays on 14 men and women who are, arguably, the most famous people of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The book covers the epoch of the celebrity beginning in the 1930s with Howard Hughes and Walt Disney and continues to the present day with the life and death of Michael Jackson. Far more than just a collection of biographies, Dead Celebrities, Living Icons documents the philosophical importance and significance of the contemporary cult of the celebrity and analyzes the tragic consequences of a human life lived in the glare of the media spotlight.

The New Media Invasion

The New Media Invasion PDF Author: John David Ebert
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786488182
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
From the 15th century until the mid–1990s, media based on the printed word—books, magazines, handbills, newspapers, and journals—dominated society. Today, an onslaught of digital media centered on the Internet is developing at a breathtaking pace, destabilizing the very idea of printed media and fundamentally reshaping our world in the process. This study explores how Internet entities like Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Google, and gadgets such as digital cameras, cell phones, video games, robots, drones, and all things MacIntosh have affected everything from the book industry and copyright law to how we conduct social relationships and consider knowledge. Including a chronology of significant events in the history of the digital explosion, this investigation of the often overlooked “shadow” side of new technology chronicles life during a radical societal shift and follows the process whereby one world disintegrates while another takes its place. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Finding the Force of the Star Wars Franchise

Finding the Force of the Star Wars Franchise PDF Author: Matthew Kapell
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9780820463339
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Textbook

Parabola

Parabola PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Legends
Languages : en
Pages : 534

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Book Description


Gods & Heroes of the Media Age

Gods & Heroes of the Media Age PDF Author: John David Ebert
Publisher: Post Egoism Media
ISBN: 9780985480295
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
We are living in an age of rapidly evanescent media transformations. From radio and pulp fiction to cinema, comic books, paperback novels, television and the Internet, the twentieth century has arguably produced more media innovations than in the past five thousand years of recorded history. And whereas Heidegger had announced that the gods were gone and that contemporary modernity was an age of beings abandoned by Being, in this new book by John David Ebert, the ancient gods are found to be still alive and well and living in the various cultural environments configured by new media. Every media innovation, Ebert contends, makes new kinds of heroes possible, and in his book Gods & Heroes of the Media Age, Ebert demonstrates that though the media reshape society in drastic and sometimes unexpected ways, they can also act to bring forth new heroes who often represent old gods in new guise. In this book, the reader will find essays on heroes like Tarzan, Conan the Barbarian, Flash Gordon, The Shadow, James Bond, Mad Max and even Breaking Bad's Walter White.

Magicians Impossible

Magicians Impossible PDF Author: Brad Abraham
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250083532
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Harry Potter meets James Bond in this story of a twenty-something slacker who discovers that he is descended from a line of magical spies and is thrust into the middle of a secret and epic battle. “Magicians Impossible is a mind-bending page-turner! A brilliant and unique mash-up of spells, myth and mayhem, once it got its claws in me I couldn't put it down. Like a veteran stage magician, Brad Abraham has created a hip thriller that turns convention on its ear with misdirection and mayhem. A must read for enthusiasts of edgy and extreme fiction.” —Don Coscarelli, director of John Dies At The End Twenty-something bartender Jason Bishop’s world is shattered when his estranged father commits suicide, but the greater shock comes when he learns his father was a secret agent in the employ of the Invisible Hand; an ancient society of spies wielding magic in a centuries-spanning war. Now the Golden Dawn—the shadowy cabal of witches and warlocks responsible for Daniel Bishop’s murder, and the death of Jason’s mother years before—have Jason in their sights. His survival will depend on mastering his own dormant magic abilities; provided he makes it through the training. From New York, to Paris, to worlds between worlds, Jason's journey through the realm of magic will be fraught with peril. But with enemies and allies on both sides of this war, whom can he trust? The Invisible Hand, who’ve been more of a family than his own family ever was? The Golden Dawn, who may know the secrets behind his mysterious lineage? For Jason Bishop, only one thing is for certain; the magic he has slowly been mastering is telling him not to trust anybody.

Art After Metaphysics

Art After Metaphysics PDF Author: John David Ebert
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781492765486
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Contemporary art is a very different kind of art from anything that has ever been practiced in the past. It is an art that takes place after the age of metaphysics, when all the imaginary significations that once used to anchor art in traditional meaning systems have disintegrated. Today's artist, consequently, is left with a rubble heap of broken meaning systems, discarded signifiers and semiotic vacancies that must be sifted through in a quest for new meanings appropriate to an age that has been reshaped by globalization. Through discussions of the works of artists such as Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Anselm Kiefer, Christian Boltanski and many others, John David Ebert attempts to fathom the nature of what it means to be an artist in a post-metaphysical age in which all certainties of meaning have collapsed.