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Celluloid Singapore is not about Singapore cinema per se, or Singapore, but both. It is a ground-breaking study of the three major periods in Singapore cinema’s fragmented history – the golden age (50s and 60s), post-studio 70s and revival from the 1990s onwards. Set against the context of Singapore’s own trajectory of development, the book poses two central questions: how can the films of each period be considered Singapore films, and how is this cinema specifically national? Celluloid Singapore argues that the films of these three periods collectively constitute a national cinema through different performances of Singapore, offering a critical framework for understanding this cinema and its history in relation to the development of the country and the national.

This two-volume set presents detailed interpretations of singular performances by several of the most compelling actors in cinema history, asking in many different and complementary ways what makes performance meaningful, how it reflects a director's style, as well as how it contributes to the development of national cinemas and cultures. Whether noting the precise ways actors shape film narrative, achieve emotional effect, or move toward political subversion, the essays in these books innovate new approaches to studying screen performance as an art form and cultural force. This second volume focuses on international cinema, and includes case studies of key performances from actors like Ingrid Bergman, Gael Garcia Bernal, Nikolai Cherkassov, Alec Guinness, Setsuko Hara, Isabelle Huppert, Peter Lorre, Madhubala, Anna Magnani, Toshirô Mifune, and Choi Min Sik, amongst many others.

Film and the Imagined Image explores the extraordinary ways in which film can stimulate and direct the image-making capacity of the imagination. From documentary to art house cinema, and from an abundance of onscreen images to their complete absence, films that experiment variously with narration, voice-over, and soundscapes do not only engage the thoughts and senses of spectators in a perceptually rich experience. They also make an appeal to visualise more than is visible on screen and they provide instruction on how to do so as spectators think and feel, listen and view. Bringing together philosophy, film theory, literary scholarship, and cognitive psychology with an international range of films from beyond the mainstream, Sarah Cooper charts the key processes that serve the imagining of images in the light of the mind. Through its navigation of a labile and vivid mental terrain, this innovative work makes a profound contribution to the study of spectatorship.

Known as the 'Georgian Socrates' of Soviet philosophy, Merab Mamardashvili was a defining personality of the late-Soviet intelligentsia. In the 1970s and 1980s, he taught required courses in philosophy at Russia's two leading film schools, helping to educate a generation of internationally prolific directors. Exploring Mamardashvili's extensive philosophical output, as well as a range of recent Russian films, Alyssa DeBlasio reveals the intellectual affinities amongst directors of the Mamardashvili generation - including Alexander Sokurov, Andrey Zvyagintsev and Alexei Balabanov. This multidisciplinary study offers an innovative way to think about film, philosophy and the philosophical potential of the moving image.

Independent documentary is enjoying a resurgence in post-reform India. But in contemporary cinema and media cultures, where ‘independent’ operates as an industry genre or critical category, how do we understand the significance of this mode of cultural production? Based on detailed onsite observation of documentary production, circulation practices and the analysis of film texts, this book identifies independence as a 'tactical practice’, contesting the normative definitions and functions assigned to culture, cultural production and producers in a neoliberal economic system. Focusing on selected filmmakers, the book establishes how they have reorganised the dominance of industrial media, technology and social relations to develop practices that build upon principles of de-economisation, artisanship and interdependence.

The first book-length academic investigation of Italian horror cinema, from the silent era to the present, this collection brings together for the first time a range of contributions aimed at a new understanding of the genre, investigating the different phases in its history, the peculiarities of the production system, the work of its most representative directors (Mario Bava and Dario Argento) and the wider role it has played within popular culture.

How can stories function as expressions of kindness to others, and how might the narratives we live by then affect our behaviour in the world? Is there such a thing as a ‘humanistic drama’? This book attempts to clarify the narrative conditions of humanism, asking how we can use stories to complicate our understanding of others, and questioning the ethics and efficacy of attempts to represent human social complexity in fiction. With case studies of films like Parenthood (1989), Junebug (2005), Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and The Kids Are All Right (2010), this original study synthesises leading discourses on media and cognition, evolutionary anthropology, literature and film analysis into a new theory of the storytelling instinct.

Nordic Genre Film offers a transnational approach to studying contemporary genre production in Nordic cinema. It discusses a range of internationally renowned examples, from Nordic noir such as the television show The Bridge and films like Insomnia (1997) to high concept ‘video generation’ productions such as Iron Sky (2012). Yet, genre, at least in this context, indicates both a complex strategy for domestic and international competition as well as an analytical means to identify the Nordic film cultures’ relationships to international trends. Conceptualizing Nordic genre film as an industrial and cultural phenomenon, other contributions focus on road movies, the horror film, autobiographical films, the quirky comedy, musicals, historical epics and pornography. These are contextualized by discussion of their place in their respective national film and media histories as well as their influence on other Nordic countries and beyond. By highlighting similarities and differences between the countries, as well as the often diverse production modes of each country, as well as the connections that have historically existed, the book works at the intersections of film and cultural studies and combines industrial perspectives and in depth discussion of specific films, while also offering historical perspectives on each genre as it comes to production, distribution and reception of popular contemporary genre film.

Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy has had a significant influence on film theory in recent years. This book proposes a relationship between Levinasian ethics and film style. It argues that films can convey Levinasian ethics not just through their subject matter but also through their use of style. The book brings this relationship between ethics and style into a productive dialogue with theories of performativity, such as J. L. Austin’s speech-act theory, Jacques Derrida’s notion of originary performativity and Judith Butler’s reconfiguration of performativity within the socio-political sphere. It explores Levinas’s influence on film through the study of three directorial bodies of work: those of the Dardenne brothers, Barbet Schroeder and Paul Schrader. The book focuses on a range of films, including the Dardennes’ Je Pense à Vous (1992), La Promesse (1996), Le Fils (2002) and The Kid with a Bike (2011), Schroeder’s Maîtresse (1975), Reversal of Fortune (1990), Terror’s Advocate (2007) and Our Lady of the Assassins (2000) and Schrader’s American Gigolo (1980), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) and Adam Resurrected (2008). In doing so, it demonstrates how films can perform a Levinasian ethics through different styles.

This book explores the diverse career of director, screenwriter, comic and actor, Elaine May Spanning from obscurity to notoriety, the films of director, screenwriter, actor and comic Elaine May have recently experienced a long-overdue renaissance. Although she made only four films — A New Leaf (1971), The Heartbreak Kid (1972), Mikey and Nicky (1976) and Ishtar (1987) — and never reached the level of acclaim of her frequent collaborator Mike Nichols, May’s work is as enigmatic, sophisticated and unceasingly fascinating as her own complicated, reluctant star persona. This collection focuses both on the films she has directed, and also emphasises her work with other high profile collaborators such as John Cassavetes and Otto Preminger.

ReFocus: The Films of Spike Jonze is the first collection of essays on this important and original contemporary filmmaker. It looks at his ground-breaking work in both features and short forms, exploring the impact of his filmmaking across a range of philosophical and cultural discussions. Each of Jonze’s feature films, from Being John Malkovich (1999) to Her (2013), is discussed at length, focusing on issues of authorship, narration, genre and adaptation. As well as the textual aspects of Jonze’s feature films, the contributors consider his work in music videos and shorts – investigating his position as a filmmaker on the blurred boundaries between studio and independent modes of production.

Rethinking the Teen Movie is the first academic monograph to theorise the construction of identity in the Hollywood Teen Movie, one of the most popular, yet academically overlooked film genres. As such, the book constitutes a significant intervention in Film Studies, providing a reconsideration of such key tropes as the male juvenile delinquent figure, the makeover and the teen vampire. Providing detailed case studies of key films from the genre, the book provides an innovative overview of the genre, and its relationship to performativity, intersectionality, post-feminism, and the post-human. Rebel Without a Cause, Grease, Pretty in Pink and Twilight are all considered here in a volume destined to be used widely in undergraduate teaching and academic scholarship alike

This collection revisits star studies with themes and methods from the latest international research into stardom and fandom across the globe. It challenges the Hollywood-centrism in star studies by presenting new angles and models, and raises important questions about image, performance, gender, sexuality, race, fandom, social media, globalisation, and translocal stardom. This volume seeks to expand the notion of stardom that is traditionally associated with glamour and desirability to include less glamourous, more troubling stardom (e.g. ageing stars, ‘crip’ stars), or previously unacknowledged stardom (e.g. porn stars, animal stars). It also aims to expand star studies to a wider range of critical disciplines by engaging with performance studies, genre studies, sound studies, disability studies, animal studies and so on. From Hollywood to Bollywood, from China to Spain, and from Poland to Mexico, this collection revisits the definitions of stars and star studies that have been previously based on the study of Hollywood stardom, and points the way forward to new ways of approaching the field.

Sculpture is an artistic practice that involves material, three-dimensional, and generally static objects, whereas cinema produces immaterial, two-dimensional, kinetic images. These differences are the basis for a range of magical, mystical and phenomenological interactions between the two media. Sculptures are literally brought to life on the silver screen, while living people are turned into, or trapped inside, statuary. Sculpture motivates cinematic movement and film makes manifest the durational properties of sculptural space. This book will examine key sculptural motifs and cinematic sculpture in film history through seven chapters and an extensive reference gallery, dealing with the transformation skills of "cinemagician" Georges Méliès, the experimental art documentaries of Carl Theodor Dreyer and Henri Alekan, the statuary metaphors of modernist cinema, the mythological living statues of the peplum genre, and contemporary art practices in which film—as material and apparatus—is used as sculptural medium. The book’s broad scope and interdisciplinary approach is sure to interest scholars, amateurs and students alike.

Stanley Cavell’s writings on film as a visual medium, and as making myths that address our scepticism about the values that allow us to see everyday life worth living, are emerging as highly influential in the burgeoning area of aesthetics that deals with the philosophy of film. The intent of this book is to trace the philosophical roots of his world view, summarize his general approach to the filmic medium, explain his genre theories, and offer original readings of types of film which are different from the comedies and melodramas that he spoke of most extensively. Throughout, I will be addressing his answer to the question “What do the Movies do best?”: of all the arts, the filmic medium is best at persuading its viewers to believe in the values it embodies. The book champions Cavell’s approach to philosophizing about film, as the most healthy and fruitful paradigm for discussing film in a philosophical context.

The Stillness of Solitude explores the Romantic connections between a selection of seven films from contemporary American filmmakers Sofia Coppola, Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze, and Charlie Kaufman. Linking the current socio-cultural moment, which has been described as ‘metamodern’, to the Romantic era, it describes how the Romantic relation to selfhood, intersubjectivity, and ‘being in the world’ informs the films studied. The first section of the book lays out the aesthetic argument, the second describes the role of imagination and emotion in creating that aesthetic, and the third explores narratives of personal growth and their relation to cultural history. The overall structure of the book traces the progression of Romantic thought and situates the films historically, while simultaneously engaging with an up-to-the-moment present. It explores gender, childhood, the artistic process, revolution, scepticism, the natural world, love, and death through specific discourses of contemporary film theory including aesthetics, cinematic metatextuality, feminist criticism, eco-criticism and animal studies, and ethical studies. It argues for the emergence of a particular strain of American ‘independent’ cinema that draws extensively on 1970s New Hollywood film in ways differing from 1990s ‘smart’ cinema, and considers how the films use both classical Hollywood and American/European arthouse cinema tropes to create an uneasy dialectic between the two, emphasising the anxieties of our own time, nostalgia for an imaginary past, and fear of an uncertain future.

What is an exploitation film? The Style of Sleaze reasons that the aesthetic and thematic approach of the key texts within three distinct exploitation demarcations - blaxploitation, horror and sexploitation - indicate a concurrent evolution of filmmaking that could be seen as an identifiable cinematic movement. Offering a fresh perspective on studies of marginal cinema, The Style of Sleaze maintains that defining exploitation cinema as a vaguely attributed 'excess' is unhelpful, and instead concludes that this period in American film history produced a number of the most transgressive, and yet morally complex, motion pictures ever made.

This is the first book in English dedicated to the actress and director Tanaka Kinuyo. Praised as amongst the greatest actors in the history of Japanese cinema, Tanaka’s career spanned the industrial development of cinema - from silent to sound, monochrome to colour. Alongside featuring in films by Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse and Kurosawa, Tanaka was also the only Japanese woman filmmaker between 1953 and 1962, and her films tackled distinctly feminine topics such as prostitution and breast cancer. Because her career overlaps with a transformative period in Japan, especially for women, this close analysis of her fascinating life and work offers new perspectives into the Japanese history of women and classical era of national cinema. The first half of the book focuses on Tanaka as actress and analyses the elements and meanings associated with her star image, and her powerful embodiment of diverse, at times contradictory, ideological discourses. The second half is dedicated to Tanaka as director and explores her public image as filmmaker and her depiction of gender and sexuality against the national history in order to reflect on her role and style as author. With a special focus on the melodrama genre and on the sociopolitical and economic contexts of film production, the book offers a revision of theories of stardom, authorship, and women’s cinema. In examining Tanaka’s iconic reification of femininities in relation to politics, national identity, and memory, the chapters shed light on the cultural construction of female subjectivity and sexuality in Japanese popular culture.