From Antz To Titanic

From Antz To Titanic PDF Author: Martin Barker
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
A jargon-free and accessible introduction to film analysis, looking at popular Hollywood films in various genres.

From Antz To Titanic

From Antz To Titanic PDF Author: Martin Barker
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
A jargon-free and accessible introduction to film analysis, looking at popular Hollywood films in various genres.

Watching with The Simpsons

Watching with The Simpsons PDF Author: Jonathan Gray
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134233205
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Using our favourite Springfield family as a case study, Watching with The Simpsons examines the textual and social role of parody in offering critical commentary on other television programs and genres. Jonathan Gray brings together textual theory, discussions of television and the public sphere, and ideas of parody and comedy. Including primary audience research, it focuses on how The Simpsons has been able to talk back to three of television’s key genres - the sitcom, adverts and the news - and on how it holds the potential to short-circuit these genre’s meanings, power, and effects by provoking reinterpretations and offering more media literate recontextualizations. Examining television and media studies theory, the text of The Simpsons, and the show’s audience, Gray attempts to fully situate the show’s parody and humour within the lived realities of its audiences. In doing so, he further explores the possibilities for popular entertainment television to discuss issues of political and social importance. A must read for any student of media studies.

EBOOK: What Is Film Theory?

EBOOK: What Is Film Theory? PDF Author: Richard Rushton
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335240380
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
"...[A]uthoritative, always engaged, and grounded in the detailed study of well chosen films. This is an exceptionally useful introduction, and good to read." Professor James Donald, The University of New South Wales, Australia This engaging and accessible book explores major debates in contemporary film theory, providing a detailed introduction to the central arguments advanced by film theorists since the 1960s. What is Film Theory? outlines the discipline's key theoretical concepts, perspectives, and traditions, and critically examines the assertions posited by exemplary film theorists and philosophers of film. A step-by-step approach to these issues guides the reader through the central topics of film theory. Beginning with a discussion of structuralism and semiotics, and moving through debates on psychoanalysis, feminism, Screen theory, and cultural studies, the authors then examine the perspectives of 'post-theory', cognitivism, and historical poetics, as well as recent developments such as audience research and the 'cinema of attractions'. Analysis of the major theories is supported with detailed and wide-ranging case studies of particular films, including Singin' in the Rain, The Searchers, Tout va bien, Jaws, Do the Right Thing, Brokeback Mountain, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. These case studies are accompanied by a series of illustrative film and production stills. What is Film Theory? is indispensable reading for all students of Film and Media Studies, as well as for general readers interested in the debates which have defined film theory.

Film as Religion, Second Edition

Film as Religion, Second Edition PDF Author: John C. Lyden
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479855928
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Argues that popular films perform a religious function in our culture The first edition of Film as Religion was one of the first texts to develop a framework for the analysis of the religious function of films for audiences. Like more formal religious institutions, films can provide us with ways to view the world and the values to confront it. Lyden argues that the cultural influence of films is analogous to that of religions, so that films can be understood as representing a “religious” worldview in their own right. Thoroughly updating his examples, Lyden examines a range of film genres and individual films, from The Godfather to The Hunger Games to Frozen, to show how film can function religiously.

Popular Iranian Cinema before the Revolution

Popular Iranian Cinema before the Revolution PDF Author: Pedram Partovi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315385600
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
Critics and academics have generally dismissed the commercial productions of the late Pahlavi era, best known for their songs and melodramatic plots, as shallow, derivative ‘entertainment’. Instead, they have concentrated on the more recent internationally acclaimed art films, claiming that these constitute Iranian ‘national' cinema, despite few Iranians having seen them. Film discourse, and even fan talk, have long attempted to marginalize the mainstream releases of the 1960s and 1970s with the moniker filmfarsi, ironically asserting that such popular favorites were culturally inauthentic. This book challenges the idea that filmfarsi is detached from the past and present of Iranians. Far from being escapist Hollywood fare merely translated into Persian, it claims that the better films of this supposed genre must be taken as both a subject of, and source for, modern Iranian history. It argues that they have an appeal that relies on their ability to rearticulate traditional courtly and religious ideas and forms to problematize in unexpectedly complex and sophisticated ways the modernist agenda that secular nationalist elites wished to impose on their viewers. Taken seriously, these films raise questions about standard treatments of Iran's modern history. By writing popular films into Iranian history, this book advocates both a fresh approach to the study of Iranian cinema, as well as a rethinking of the modernity/tradition binary that has organized the historiography of the recent past. It will appeal to those interested in Iranian cinema, Iranian history and culture, and, more broadly, readers dissatisfied with a dichotomous approach to modernity.

Cinema and Sentiment

Cinema and Sentiment PDF Author: Clive Marsh
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1625643489
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
Cinema & Sentiment Film's challenge to Theology What do films do to people? What do people do with films? All film-watching happens within a cultural context. Exploring cinema-going as leisure activity and by comparing film-watching with worship, Clive Marsh demonstrates aspects of the religious function of film-watching in Western culture. Through a variety of case-studies, including a look at the films of Robin Williams and the Coen brothers, Marsh's study shows how film-watching as a regular practice contributes to the shaping of human living. Engaging with rapidly changing social and religious behaviour patterns in Western culture, Cinema and Sentiment suggests a need to recover a positive sense of 'sentiment', both in theology and film. Marsh locates his findings within recent studies of theology and film. In his final chapter he offers to church leaders, students of theology and film studies and all those with an interest in contemporary culture some very practical suggestions.

Hollywood Hype and Audiences

Hollywood Hype and Audiences PDF Author: Thomas Austin
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719057755
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
This book traces the circulation in Britain of three Hollywood films--Basic Instinct, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Natural Born Killers --from marketing and critical reception to consumption in cinemas and on video. It draws on economic discursive contexts and original audience research to trace how meanings, pleasures, and uses are derived from popular film. A significant intervention into methodological debates in film studies and a timely investigation of film culture, it focuses on key questions about genre, taste, sexual pleasure and screen violence.

Film as Religion

Film as Religion PDF Author: John Lyden
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814751806
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2003 Film as Religion argues that popular films perform a religious function in our culture. Like more formal religious institutions, films can provide us with ways to view the world and values to confront it. Lyden contends that approaches which interpret films only ideologically or theologically miss the mark in understanding their appeal to viewers. He develops an alternative method which shows how films can be understood as representing a “religious” worldview in their own right. Lyden surveys the state of the study of religion and film, offering an overview of previous methods before presenting his own. Rather than seeking to uncover hidden meanings in film detectable only to scholars, Lyden emphasizes how film functions for its audiences?the beliefs and values it conveys, and its ritual power to provide emotional catharsis. He includes a number of brief cases studies in which he applies this method to the study of film genres—including westerns and action movies, children's films, and romantic comedies—and individual films from The Godfather to E.T., showing how films can function religiously.

Fantasy/Animation

Fantasy/Animation PDF Author: Christopher Holliday
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351681400
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
This book examines the relationship that exists between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Animation has played a key role in defining our collective expectations and experiences of fantasy cinema, just as fantasy storytelling has often served as inspiration for our most popular animated film and television. Bringing together contributions from world-renowned film and media scholars, Fantasy/Animation considers the various historical, theoretical, and cultural ramifications of the animated fantasy film. This collection provides a range of chapters on subjects including Disney, Pixar, and Studio Ghibli, filmmakers such as Ralph Bakshi and James Cameron, and on film and television franchises such as Dreamworks’ How To Train Your Dragon (2010–) and HBO’s Game of Thrones (2011–).

Show Sold Separately

Show Sold Separately PDF Author: Jonathan Gray
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814731953
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This work examines the world of film and television that exists before and after the show. It may rewrite the rules of what we look at when we want to understand how audiences make meaning of media franchises as profoundly as Tony Bennett and Janet Woollcott's 'Bond and Beyond' did for a previous generation.