Download or read book Film Firsts written by Ethan Alter and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-02-17 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This forward-looking exploration of contemporary American film across the last 40 years identifies and examines the specific movies that changed the film industry and shaped its present and future. Since the mid-1970s, American cinema has gone through enormous changes, such as the birth of the modern summer blockbuster, the rise of the independent film industry, ongoing technological advancements in special effects, and the ever-evolving models for film distribution. Written by a professional film critic and film buff, this book tells the story of contemporary American cinema in a unique and engaging way: by examining 25 key movies that demonstrated a significant creative, technological, or business innovation that impacted the industry at large. Each chapter in this chronological survey of contemporary film is divided into two sections: "The Film," which offers a critical overview of the film in question; and "The First," which describes the specific innovation achieved by that film and places that achievement in the larger historical context. Two additional appendices in each chapter explore other significant aspects of both the film and its groundbreaking nature. The broad coverage—ranging from action movies to horror films to science fiction favorites—ensures the work's appeal to all film fans.
Download or read book Film Firsts written by Ethan Alter and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-02-17 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This forward-looking exploration of contemporary American film across the last 40 years identifies and examines the specific movies that changed the film industry and shaped its present and future. Since the mid-1970s, American cinema has gone through enormous changes, such as the birth of the modern summer blockbuster, the rise of the independent film industry, ongoing technological advancements in special effects, and the ever-evolving models for film distribution. Written by a professional film critic and film buff, this book tells the story of contemporary American cinema in a unique and engaging way: by examining 25 key movies that demonstrated a significant creative, technological, or business innovation that impacted the industry at large. Each chapter in this chronological survey of contemporary film is divided into two sections: "The Film," which offers a critical overview of the film in question; and "The First," which describes the specific innovation achieved by that film and places that achievement in the larger historical context. Two additional appendices in each chapter explore other significant aspects of both the film and its groundbreaking nature. The broad coverage—ranging from action movies to horror films to science fiction favorites—ensures the work's appeal to all film fans.
Download or read book My First Movie written by Stephen Lowenstein and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2000 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nobody forgets their first time--and film directors are no exception. In these vivid and revealing interviews, a collection of filmmakers as diverse as the Coen brothers and Ken Loach, Ang Lee and Kevin Smith, Anthony Minghella and Gary Oldman, Neil Jordan and Mira Nair talk in extraordinary detail and with amazing candor about making their first films. Each chapter focuses on a director's celebrated debut--be it "Angel or "Blood Simple, "Clerks or "Diner, "Muriel's Wedding or "Truly, Madly, Deeply--and tells the inside story: from writing the script to raising the money, from casting the actors to assembling the crew, from shooting to editing, from selling the movie to screening it. Along the way, every aspect of the movie industry is explored: from dealing with agents and moguls for the first time to pitching your movie as a debutante director, from languishing in development hell to confronting test audiences from hell. The questions have been posed by Stephen Lowenstein, a young director with two acclaimed short films to his credit. Remembering the struggle to launch their careers, the directors have opened up about their first films and themselves to an unprecedented degree. Each chapter is not only a memoir of a particular movie, but also an emotional journey in which the director relives the pain and elation, the comedy and tragedy, of making a first feature. For anyone who wants to direct movies, these tales of triumph and disaster, of sleepless nights and nail-biting days, will be enthralling and terrifying in equal measure. For all other film fans, the interviews provide fascinating and entertaining insights into filmmakers who have become household names.
Download or read book Movies in American History 3 volumes written by Philip C. DiMare and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-06-17 with total page 1505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This provocative three-volume encyclopedia is a valuable resource for readers seeking an understanding of how movies have both reflected and helped engender America's political, economic, and social history. Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia is a reference text focused on the relationship between American society and movies and filmmaking in the United States from the late 19th century through the present. Beyond discussing many important American films ranging from Birth of a Nation to Star Wars to the Harry Potter film series, the essays included in the volumes explore sensitive issues in cinema related to race, class, and gender, authored by international scholars who provide unique perspectives on American cinema and history. Written by a diverse group of distinguished scholars with backgrounds in history, film studies, culture studies, science, religion, and politics, this reference guide will appeal to readers new to cinema studies as well as film experts. Each encyclopedic entry provides data about the film, an explanation of the film's cultural significance and influence, information about significant individuals involved with that work, and resources for further study.
Download or read book VCR and Film Catalog written by and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 920 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Books Into Film written by Robin H. Smiley and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beginning, the movie industry has looked to literature for source material. Many of the Twentieth century's finest writers were brought to the movie-making centers -- especially Hollywood -- to adapt their own books into screenplays. More often, another writer or writers would be given the assignment of turning a book into a workable film script. Sometimes the result was a creative leap that expanded and illuminated the original work. Frequently, it wasn't. In the 60-plus essays collected in Books into Film, Robin H. Smiley explores the creative process that puts words together into a book, then translates those words into speech and image and action on film. Drawing upon his experience as a writer and screenwriter and a lifelong student and fan of the movies, the author thoughtfully considers a wide range of books -- from high comedy to darkest noir, from science fiction to melodrama -- and the films made from them. Book jacket.
Download or read book Lovers of Cinema written by Jan-Christopher Horak and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians and students of American avant-garde cinema often overlook the films of the 1920s through the early 1940s, considering them mere derivatives of their European counterparts. In fact, the American films possess an eclecticism, innovation, and naivete all their own. Marshaling his broad cinematic and cultural knowledge, editor Jan-Christopher Horak has compiled in Lovers of Cinema a ground-breaking group of articles on this neglected film period. With one exception, all are original to this volume, and many are the first to treat comprehensively such early filmmakers as Mary Ellen Bute, Theodore Huff, and Douglass Crockwell.
Download or read book Pride An Inspirational History of the LGBTQ Movement written by Stella Caldwell and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take pride in who you are! This inspiring history of the LGBTQ+ community enlightens young readers on the true timeline of LGBTQ+ history around the world, the lives of important figures like Harvey Milk, and iconic events like Stonewall. The LGBTQ+ community is so much more than rainbow flags and the month of June. In this beautifully designed dynamic book, young readers will learn about groundbreaking events, including historic pushes for equality and the legalization of same-sex marriages across the world. They will dive into the phenomenal history of queer icons from ancient times to the present and read about Harvey Milk, Marsha P. Johnson, Audre Lorde, and more. Including several personal current essays from inspiring young, LGBTQ+ people, this book encourages readers to take pride in their identity and the identities of those around them. Don’t just learn about LGBTQ+ history – take pride in it! The lively four-color interior, including photographs and bold illustrations, enhances the text and makes this a beautiful and dynamic addition to any collection.
Download or read book Visualizing Film History written by Christian Gosvig Olesen and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2025-01-07 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though many archival digital objects were not "born digital," film archives are now becoming important resources for digital scholarship as a consequence of digitization. Moreover, with advancements in digital research methods involving video annotation, visual analysis, and GIS affecting the way we look at archival films' material, stylistic histories and circulation, new research practices are more important than ever. Visualizing Film History is an accessible introduction to archive-based digital scholarship in film and media studies and beyond. With a combined focus on the history of film historiography, archiving, and recent digital scholarship—covering a period from the "first wave" of film archiving in the early 1900s to recent data art—this book proposes ways to work critically with digitized archives and research methods. Christian Olesen encourages a shift towards new critical practices in the field with an in-depth assessment of and critical approach to doing film historiography with the latest digital tools and digitized archives. Olesen argues that if students, scholars and archivists are to fully realize the potential of emerging digital tools and methodologies, they must critically consider the roles that data analysis, visualization, interfaces and procedural human-machinery interactions play in producing knowledge in current film historical research. If we fail to do so, we risk losing our ability to critically navigate and renew contemporary research practices and evaluate the results of digital scholarship.
Download or read book Filming History from Below written by Efrén Cuevas and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional historical documentaries strive to project a sense of objectivity, producing a top-down view of history that focuses on public events and personalities. In recent decades, in line with historiographical trends advocating “history from below,” a different type of historical documentary has emerged, focusing on tightly circumscribed subjects, personal archives, and first-person perspectives. Efrén Cuevas categorizes these films as “microhistorical documentaries” and examines how they push cinema’s capacity as a producer of historical knowledge in new directions. Cuevas pinpoints the key features of these documentaries, identifying their parallels with written microhistory: a reduced scale of observation, a central role given to human agency, a conjectural approach to the use of archival sources, and a reliance on narrative structures. Microhistorical documentaries also use tools specific to film to underscore the affective dimension of historical narratives, often incorporating autobiographical and essayistic perspectives, and highlighting the role of the protagonists’ personal memories in the reconstruction of the past. These films generally draw from family archives, with an emphasis on snapshots and home movies. Filming History from Below examines works including Péter Forgács’s films dealing with the Holocaust such as The Maelstrom and Free Fall; documentaries about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Rithy Panh’s work on the Cambodian genocide; films about the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War such as A Family Gathering and History and Memory; and Jonas Mekas’s chronicle of migration in his diary film Lost, Lost, Lost.
Download or read book History Films Women and Freud s Uncanny written by Susan E. Linville and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2004-06-01 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History films were a highly popular genre in the 1990s, as Hollywood looked back at significant and troubling episodes from World War II, the Cold War era, and the techno-war in the Persian Gulf. As filmmakers attempted to confront and manage intractable elements of the American past, such as the trauma of war and the legacy of racism, Susan Linville argues that a surprising casualty occurred—the erasure of relevant facets of contemporary women's history. In this book, Linville offers a sustained critique of the history film and its reduction of women to figures of ambivalence or absence. Historicizing and adapting Freud's concept of the uncanny and its relationship to the maternal body as the first home, she offers theoretically sophisticated readings of the films Midnight Clear, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Nixon, Courage Under Fire, Lone Star, and Limbo. She also demonstrates that the uncanny is not only a source of anxiety but also potentially a progressive force for eroding nostalgic ideals of nation and gender. Linville concludes with a close reading of a recent 9/11 documentary, showing how the patterns and motifs of 1990s history films informed it and what that means for our future.
Download or read book History and Film written by Eleftheria Thanouli and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Choice Outstanding Academic Title History and Film: A Tale of Two Disciplines addresses the representation of history in cinema, a much-argued debate on the need to understand cinematic history in its own terms and develop a certain vocabulary for discussing historical films, their relation to public history, and their impact on public historical consciousness. Eleftheria Thanouli does this by changing the agenda altogether - combining a macro-level perspective with a micro-level one in order to argue that cinematic history is the dominant form of historiography in the 20th century, as it succeeded in remediating and repurposing the key formal, rhetorical, and ideological practices of 19th-century professional historiography. With case studies ranging from The Thin Red Line and Life is Beautiful, to The Fog of War and The Last Bolshevik, Thanouli bridges the gap between history and film studies and lays the foundations for a new visual historiography.
Download or read book Teaching History with Film written by Alan S. Marcus and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a fresh overview of teaching with film to effectively enhance social studies instruction.
Download or read book Post Wall German Cinema and National History written by Mary-Elizabeth O'Brien and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2014 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: German history films that focus on utopianism and political dissent and their effect on German identity since 1989. Since unification, a radical shift has taken place in Germans' view of their country's immediate past, with 1989 replacing 1945 as the primary caesura. The cold-war division, the failed socialist state, the '68 student movement, and the Red Army Faction -- historical flashpoints involving political oppression, civil disobedience, and the longing for utopian solutions to social injustice -- have come to be seen as decisive moments in a collective history that unites East and West even as it divides them. Telling stories about a shared past, establishing foundational myths, and finding commonalities of experience are pivotal steps in the construction of national identity. Such nation-building is always incomplete, but the cinema provides an important forum in which notions of German history and national identity can be consumed, negotiated, and contested. This book looks at history films made since 1989, exploring how utopianism and political dissent have shaped German identity. It studies the genre - including popular successes, critical successes, and perceived failures - as a set of texts and a discursive network, gauging which conventions and storylines are resilient. At issue is the overriding question: to what extent do these films contribute to a narrative that legitimizes the German nation-state? Mary-Elizabeth O'Brien is Professor of Germanand The Courtney and Steven Ross Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore College.
Download or read book The Oxford History of World Cinema written by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1996-10-17 with total page 847 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford History of World Cinema is the most authoritative, up-to-date history of the Cinema ever undertaken. It traces the history of the twentieth-century's most enduringly popular entertainment form, covering all aspects of its development, stars, studios, and cultural impact. The book celebrates and chronicles over one hundred years of diverse achievement from westerns to the New Wave, from animation to the Avant-Garde, and from Hollywood to Hong Kong, with an international team of distinguished film historians telling the story of the major inventions and developments in the cinema business, its institutions, genres, and personnel. Other chapters outline the evolution of national cinemas round the world - the varied and distinctive filmic traditions that have developed alongside Hollywood. Also included are over 140 special inset features on the film-makers and personalities - Garbo and Godard, Keaton and Kurosawa, Bugs Bunny and Bergman - who have had an enduring impact in popular memory and cinematic lore. With over 300 illustrations, a full bibliography, and an extensive index, The Oxford History of World Cinema is an invaluable and entertaining guide and resource for the student and general reader.
Download or read book The Cinema of Me written by Alisa Lebow and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-29 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a filmmaker makes a film with herself as a subject, she is already divided as both the subject matter of the film and the subject making the film. The two senses of the word are immediately in play – the matter and the maker—thus the two ways of being subjectified as both subject and object. Subjectivity finds its filmic expression, not surprisingly, in very personal ways, yet it is nonetheless shaped by and in relation to collective expressions of identity that can transform the cinema of 'me' into the cinema of 'we'. Leading scholars and practitioners of first-person film are brought together in this groundbreaking collection to consider the theoretical, ideological, and aesthetic challenges wrought by this form of filmmaking in its diverse cultural, geographical, and political contexts.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of Iran written by William Bayne Fisher and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1968 with total page 1170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Iran from 1722-1979: political, social, economic and religious aspects of Iran.
