Author: Mikel J. Koven
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 1461664160
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 207
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Book Description
With the exception of die-hard aficionados of European or Italian horror cinema, most people may not have heard of giallo cinema or have seen many films in this subgenre of horror. Most academic film studies tend to ignore horror cinema in general and the giallo specifically. Critics often deride these films, which reveal more about the reviewers' own prejudices than any problem with the works themselves. As a counter to such biases, Mikel J. Koven argues for an alternative approach to studying these films, by approaching them as vernacular cinema—distinct from "popular cinema." According to Koven, to look at a film from a vernacular perspective removes the assumptions about what constitutes a "good" film and how a particular film is in some way "artistic." In La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film, Koven explores the history and evolution of this aspect of cinema, and places these films within the context of Italian popular filmmaking. He addresses various themes, motifs, and tropes in these films: their use of space, the murders, the role of the detective, the identity of the killer, issues of belief, excess, and the set-piece. In addition to being the first academic study of the giallo film in English, this book surveys more than fifty films of this subgenre. In addition to filmmakers like Mario Bava and Dario Argento, Koven also looks at the films of Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino, Pupi Avati, Umberto Lenzi, and others. In all, the works of twenty-five different filmmakers are considered in this book. Also explored are the inter-relationships between these films: how one influences others, how certain filmmakers take ideas and build off of them, and how those ideas are further transformed by other filmmakers. Koven also explores the impact of the giallo on the later North American slasher genre.
Author: Tullio Kezich
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429923253
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 464
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Book Description
A lively and authoritative journey into the world of a cinema master With the revolutionary 8 1/2, Federico Fellini put his deepest desires and anxieties before the lens in 1963, permanently impacting the art of cinema in the process. Now, more than forty years later, film critic and Fellini confidant Tullio Kezich has written the work by which all other biographies of the filmmaker are sure to be measured. In this moving and intimately revealing account of a lifetime spent in pictures, Kezich uses his friendship with Fellini as a means to step outside the frame of myth and anecdote that surrounds him—much, it turns out, of the director's own making. A great lover of women and a meticulous observer of dreams, Fellini, perhaps more than any other director of the twentieth century, created films that embodied a thoroughly modern sensibility, eschewing traditional narrative along with religious and moral precepts. His is an art of delicate pathos, of episodic films that directly address the intersection of reality, fantasy, and desire that exists as a product of mid-century Italy—a country reeling from a Fascist regime as it struggled with an outmoded Catholic national identity. As Kezich reveals, the dilemmas Fellini presents in his movies reflect not only his personal battles but those of Italian society. The result is a book that explores both the machinations of cinema and the man who most grandly embraced the full spectrum of its possibilities, leaving his indelible mark on it forever.
Author: Claudia Zedda
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1291686967
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
Est Antigoriu è un viaggio in terra sarda, un mosaico di profumi, usi, tradizioni, folklore e sentimento isolano che dà forma all'isola esattamente come l'autrice la percepisce. E' lo stesso titolo a definire la terra sarda antica, nel fascino, nella cultura, nella gastronomia, nell'arte e nell'architettura, nei suoni e in quei sentimenti che sparpaglia come grano al vento, capace come s'è dimostrata di trattenere dell'antico solo il meglio. L'isola viene letta e riletta sotto diversi aspetti: con gli occhi di donna tradita, amata, protetta o esposta, con lo sguardo delle Dee che l'hanno abitata, rivivendo feste, attraversando malattie e cure, sognando della Sardegna di ieri e ripercorrendone la storia attraverso l'arte che al suo interno vide nascere, d'intreccio, di pittura, di foto.
Author: Roberto Curti
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476619891
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 221
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Book Description
The "Gothic" style was a key trend in Italian cinema of the 1950s and 1960s because of its peculiar, often strikingly original approach to the horror genre. These films portrayed Gothic staples in a stylish and idiosyncratic way, and took a daring approach to the supernatural and to eroticism, with the presence of menacing yet seductive female witches, vampires and ghosts. Thanks to such filmmakers as Mario Bava (Black Sunday), Riccardo Freda (The Horrible Dr. Hichcock), and Antonio Margheriti (Castle of Blood), as well the iconic presence of actress Barbara Steele, Italian Gothic horror went overseas and reached cult status. The book examines the Italian Gothic horror of the period, with an abundance of previously unpublished production information drawn from official papers and original scripts. Entries include a complete cast and crew list, home video releases, plot summary and the author's analysis. Excerpts from interviews with filmmakers, scriptwriters and actors are included. The foreword is by film director and scriptwriter Ernesto Gastaldi.
Author: Bruce Isaacs
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190889950
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
In a now-famous interview with Fran�ois Truffaut in 1962, Alfred Hitchcock described his masterpiece Rear Window (1954) as "the purest expression of a cinematic idea." But what, precisely, did Hitchcock mean by pure cinema? Was pure cinema a function of mise en sc�ne, or composition within the frame? Was it a function of montage, "of pieces of film assembled"? This notion of pure cinema has intrigued and perplexed critics, theorists, and filmmakers alike in the decades following this discussion. And even across his 40-year career, Hitchcock's own ideas about pure cinema remained mired in a lack of detail, clarity, and analytical precision. The Art of Pure Cinema is the first book-length study to examine the historical foundations and stylistic mechanics of pure cinema. Author Bruce Isaacs explores the potential of a philosophical and artistic approach most explicitly demonstrated by Hitchcock in his later films, beginning with Hitchcock's contact with the European avant-garde film movement in the mid-1920s. Tracing the evolution of a philosophy of pure cinema across Hitchcock's most experimental works - Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, and Frenzy - Isaacs rereads these works in a new and vital context. In addition to this historical account, the book presents the first examination of pure cinema as an integrated stylistics of mise en sc�ne, montage, and sound design. The films of so-called Hitchcockian imitators like Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Brian De Palma are also examined in light of a provocative claim: that the art of pure cinema is only fully realized after Hitchcock.
Author: Xavier Mendik
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443882887
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
In recent years, there has been an explosion of critical interest in the icons, genres and traditions of 1970s Italian cult film. Thanks to the international success of directors such as Dario Argento and Sergio Martino, and the influential giallo (thriller) cycle in which they worked, these unconventional and often controversial films are now impacting on new generations of filmmakers, scholars and moviegoers alike. Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress: The Golden Age of Italian Cult Cinema 1970–1985 considers the current interest in specific Italian directors and cult genres, exploring the social, political and cultural factors that spawned a decade of cinema dominated by extreme, yet stylish, images of sexuality and violence. Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress situates the explosion of 1970s Italian cult ‘excess’ against the toxic backdrop of political violence and terrorist activity that produced shocking images of carnage and crime during this period. The volume also considers why the iconography of the sexually liberated female became recast as a symbol of fear and violation in a range of Italian cult film narratives. In addition, the book also analyses how longstanding regional distinctions between Italy’s urban North and the much maligned rural South fed into sex and death cycles produced between 1970 and 1985. Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress profiles leading 1970s Italian directors and performers including Aristide Massaccesi (Joe D’Amato), Laura Gemser, and Dario Argento (who also provides an interview discussing his work and 1970s Italian society). The volume also provides case-studies of the giallo cycle, rape and revenge dramas, the Italian rogue cop series, post-apocalypse films, barbarian movies, and sex comedy formats. By considering the icons and genres from the golden age of Italian cult film alongside the crucial social and sexual tensions that influenced their creation, this book will be of interest to film scholars and cult movie fans alike.
Author: Fisher Austin Fisher
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474411746
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330
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Book Description
Blood in the Streets investigates the various ways in which 1970s Italian crime films were embedded in their immediate cultural and political contexts. The book analyses the emergence, proliferation and distribution of a range of popular film cycles (or filoni) - from conspiracy thrillers and vigilante films, to mafia and serial killer narratives - and examines what these reveal about their time and place. With industrial conditions geared around rapid production schedules and concentrated release patterns, the engagement in these films with both the contemporary political turmoil of 1970s Italy and the traumas of the nation's recent past offers a range of fascinating insights into the wider anxieties of this decade concerning the Second World War and its ongoing political aftermath.
Author: Freya Schiwy
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822982420
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 407
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Book Description
Adjusting the Lens offers a detailed analysis of contemporary, independent, indigenous-language audiovisual production in Mexico and in Mexican migrant communities in the United States. The contributors relate the styles and forms of collaborative and community media production to socially critical, transformative, resistant, and constitutive processes off-screen, thereby exploring the political within the context of the media. The chapters show how diasporic media makers map novel interpretations of image and sound into existing audiovisual discourses to communicate social and cultural changes within their communities that counter stereotypical representations in commercial television and cinema, and contribute to a newfound communal identity. The new media expose the conflict of social movements and/or indigenous and rural communities with the state, challenge Eurocentrism and globalization, and reveal the power of audiovisual production to affect political change.
Author: Ivo Ritzer
Publisher: Schüren Verlag
ISBN: 3741000418
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372
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Book Description
Der Band widmet sich den vielfältigen Globalisierungsprozessen in filmischen Genrekonfigurationen. Dieser bislang erst in Ansätzen erforschte Themenkomplex wird anhand paradigmatischer Beispiele sowohl theoretisch perspektiviert als auch filmhistorisch kontextualisiert. Neben Analysen US-amerikanischer und europäischer Produktionen liegt der Fokus vor allem auch auf Filmen aus Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika, wobei Kategorien wie nationale Kinematografien oder abgrenzbare Genremuster in den Fallbeispielen nur noch bedingt greifen. Den transnationalen Dimensionen der Filme entsprechend, versammelt der Band auch Beiträge von internationalen Vertretern der Film- und Medienwissenschaft, darunter Tim Bergfelder, Oksana Bulgakowa, Dimitris Eleftheriotis, Barry Keith Grant, Lúcia Nagib, Ella Shohat oder Robert Stam. The volume deals with the diverse processes of globalisation in cinematic configurations of genre. Focussing on significant examples, this up to now only rudimentarily researched area is both historically analysed as well as theoretically explored. Apart from U.S. and European productions, the volume mainly addresses films from Africa, Asia and Latin America, which render conceptions of national cinema or clearly definable genre patterns especially problematic. In accordance with the transnational dimension of the films, the volume assembles contributions of internationally renowned scholars such as Tim Bergfelder, Oksana Bulgakowa, Dimitris Eleftheriotis, Barry Keith Grant, Lúcia Nagib, Ella Shohat, or Robert Stam.
Author: Brandon Chua
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000832112
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 475
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Book Description
The Routledge Companion to Global Literary Adaptation in the Twenty-First Century offers new perspectives on contemporary literary adaptation as a dynamically global field. Featuring contributions from an international team of established and emerging scholars, this volume considers literary adaptation to be a complex global network of influences, appropriations, and audiences across a diversity of media. It offers site-specific case studies that situate literary adaptation within global market forces while challenging the homogenizing effects of globalization on local literatures and adaptation practices. The collection also provides a multi-disciplinary and transnational discussion around a wide array of topics in literary adaptation in a global context, such as soft power, decolonization, global justice, the posthuman, eco criticism, and forms of activism. This Companion provides scholars, researchers, and students with a survey of key methodologies, current debates, and ideologies emerging from a new and exciting phase in literary adaptation.
