Download or read book American Prison Film Since 1930 written by David Gonthier and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies a number of well-known prison films from an analytical and historical perspective. Throughout the years, prison movies have appeared to be neglected within the canon of genres like westerns, screwball comedies, horror films and the like; they have been recognized merely an adjunct subgenre to the more prominent genres like gangster films. The prison movie is indeed its own separate genre, and the book proves this by utilizing existing genre criticism, especially from leading scholars like Thomas Schatz. Although there have been a number of cross-genre films (Blade Runner is a fusion of science fiction, film noir, and action/adventure; Star Wars is a science fiction western action film, etc.), the prison movie is perhaps the only pure-bred genre that yields so many other genres within its original framework: gangster prison films (The Big House), film noir prison films (Brute Force), western prison films (There Was a Crooked Man), sports prison films (The Longest Yard), science fiction prison films (Escape from New York), the POW film (Stalag 17), even musicals (Chicago). In addition to surveying the genre from 1930-2000, the book deconstructs twelve films in great detail through full annotated summaries based on the codes and conventions of the proposed genre – films like Stalag 17, Cool Hand Luke, Midnight Express, Escape from Alcatraz, and The Shawshank Redemption are among the films considered.
Download or read book The American Prison as Portrayed in Popular Motion Pictures of the 1930 s written by Ronald Burns Querry and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Carceral Fantasies written by Alison Griffiths and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking contribution to the study of nontheatrical film exhibition, Carceral Fantasies tells the little-known story of how cinema found a home in the U.S. penitentiary system and how the prison emerged as a setting and narrative trope in modern cinema. Focusing on films shown in prisons before 1935, Alison Griffiths explores the unique experience of viewing cinema while incarcerated and the complex cultural roots of cinematic renderings of prison life. Griffiths considers a diverse mix of cinematic genres, from early actualities and reenactments of notorious executions to reformist exposés of the 1920s. She connects an early fascination with cinematic images of punishment and execution, especially electrocutions, to the attractions of the nineteenth-century carnival electrical wonder show and Phantasmagoria (a ghost show using magic lantern projections and special effects). Griffiths draws upon convict writing, prison annual reports, and the popular press obsession with prison-house cinema to document the integration of film into existing reformist and educational activities and film's psychic extension of flights of fancy undertaken by inmates in their cells. Combining penal history with visual and film studies and theories surrounding media's sensual effects, Carceral Fantasies illuminates how filmic representations of the penal system enacted ideas about modernity, gender, the body, and the public, shaping both the social experience of cinema and the public's understanding of the modern prison.
Download or read book Prison Movies written by Kevin Kehrwald and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-14 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prison Movies: Cinema Behind Bars traces the public fascination with incarceration from the silent era to the present. Often considered an offshoot of the gangster film, the prison film precedes the gangster film and is in many ways its opposite. Rather than focusing on tragic figures heading for a fall, the prison film focuses on fallen characters seeking redemption. The gangster's perverse pursuit of the American dream is irrelevant to the prisoner for whom that dream has already failed. At their core, prison films are about self-preservation at the hands of oppressive authority. Like history itself, prison films display long stretches of idleness punctuated by eruptions of violence, dangerous moments that signify liberation and the potential for change. The enclosed world of the prison is a highly effective microcosm, one that forces characters and audiences alike to confront vexing issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality. These portrayals of men and women behind bars have thrived because they deal with such fundamental human themes as freedom, individuality, power, justice, and mercy. Films examined include The Big House (1930), I Want to Live! (1958), The Defiant Ones (1958), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Midnight Express (1978), Escape from Alcatraz (1979), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), and Starred Up (2013).
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Crime Films written by Geoff Mayer and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 515 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The crime film genre consists of detective films, gangster films, suspense thrillers, film noir, and caper films and is produced throughout the world. Crime film was there at the birth of cinema, and it has accompanied cinema over more than a century of history, passing from silent films to talkies, from black-and-white to color. The genre includes such classics as The Maltese Falcon, The Godfather, Gaslight, The French Connection, and Serpico, as well as more recent successes like Seven, Drive, and L.A. Confidential. The Historical Dictionary of Crime Films covers the history of this genre through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on key films, directors, performers, and studios. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about crime cinema. -- from Amazon.com.
Download or read book The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America A De written by Wilbur R. Miller and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2012-08-10 with total page 2713 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive and authoratative four-volume work surveys the history and philosophy of crime, punishment, and criminal justice institutions in America from colonial times to the present.
Download or read book American Cinema of the 1930s written by Ina Rae Hark and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2007-06-21 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Probably no decade saw as many changes in the Hollywood film industry and its product as the 1930s did. At the beginning of the decade, the industry was still struggling with the transition to talking pictures. Gangster films and naughty comedies starring Mae West were popular in urban areas, but aroused threats of censorship in the heartland. Whether the film business could survive the economic effects of the Crash was up in the air. By 1939, popularly called "Hollywood's Greatest Year," films like Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz used both color and sound to spectacular effect, and remain American icons today. The "mature oligopoly" that was the studio system had not only weathered the Depression and become part of mainstream culture through the establishment and enforcement of the Production Code, it was a well-oiled, vertically integrated industrial powerhouse. The ten original essays in American Cinema of the 1930s focus on sixty diverse films of the decade, including Dracula, The Public Enemy, Trouble in Paradise, 42nd Street, King Kong, Imitation of Life, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Swing Time, Angels with Dirty Faces, Nothing Sacred, Jezebel, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Stagecoach .
Download or read book Encyclopedia of the Sixties 2 volumes written by Abbe A. Debolt and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-12-12 with total page 960 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comedian Robin Williams said that if you remember the '60s, you weren't there. This encyclopedia documents the people, places, movements, and culture of that memorable decade for those who lived it and those who came after. Encyclopedia of the Sixties: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture surveys the 1960s from January 1960 to December 1969. Nearly 500 entries cover everything from the British television cult classic The Avengers to the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. The two-volume work also includes biographies of artists, architects, authors, statesmen, military leaders, and cinematic stars, concentrating on what each individual accomplished during the 1960s, with brief postscripts of their lives beyond the period. There was much more to the Sixties than flower power and LSD, and the entries in this encyclopedia were compiled with an eye to providing a balanced view of the decade. Thus, unlike works that emphasize only the radical and revolutionary aspects of the period to the exclusion of everything else, these volumes include the political and cultural Right, taking a more academic than nostalgic approach and helping to fill a gap in the popular understanding of the era.
Download or read book Instrument of the State written by Benjamin J. Harbert and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Angola Prison is the largest and one of the most notorious state prisons in the United States, built into a slave plantation that Louisiana bought in 1901. It has also been the most musically significant. Following a documentary film project, author Benjamin J. Harbert visited Angola, gathered oral histories, and conducted archival research to piece together an account of how prisoners and the administration have used music for over 120 years. The book brings together well-known musicians who served time there, including Lead Belly, Charles Neville, and James Booker, as well as a litany of musicians who made significant contributions to the prison's music scene only to die there or unable to establish careers upon release. Instrument of the State: A Century of Music in Louisiana State Penitentiary traces how musicians find small but essential freedoms by playing jazz, R&B, country, gospel, rock, and fusion. In doing so, Harbert expands folkloric definitions of "prison music." The book considers the broader musicality of the prison as a way of understanding state power and the fragments of hope and joy that remain in its wake. Music connects to the prison's shifting and often conflicting missions: rehabilitation, slavery, and abandonment. The perspectives of incarcerated musicians will reveal how music responds to violence, reform, prisoner rights, sensationalism, and power through the twentieth century. Instrument of the State is an indictment of the brutality of prison, its disproportionate effects on African-Americans, and the desperate profiteering of a deliberately underfunded state agency"--
Download or read book The Films of Alan Parker 1976 2003 written by David F. Gonthier, Jr. and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-09-03 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The offbeat musicals Fame 1980), Pink Floyd--The Wall (1982), The Commitments 1991) and Evita (1996)... The stylized biopics Midnight Express (1978), Mississippi Burning (1988), The Road to Wellville (1994) and Angela's Ashes (1999)... The visceral social dramas Shoot the Moon (1982), Birdy (1984), Come See the Paradise (1990) and The Life of David Gale (2003)... The one-of-kind genre films Bugsy Malone (1979) and Angel Heart (1987)... These are the films of British director, writer, producer and cartoonist Sir Alan Parker. Among many awards and a knighthood, Parker is the founding director of the Director's Guild of Great Britain, and in 2013 won the honorary British Academy of Film and Television Arts Fellowship Award. Parker is known for his humility as a director and has never considered himself an auteur: "I have total admiration for film crews. They are the true heroes of the filmmaking process, not directors." He has worked alongside producer Alan Marshall, cinematographer Michael Seresin and the late film editor, Gerry Hambling. This book is the first study of his complete body of feature films (1976-2003).
Download or read book Prison Breaks written by Tomas Max Martin and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-02-12 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection analyses the prison through the most fundamental challenge it faces: escapes. The chapters comprise original research from established prison scholars who develop the contours of a sociology of prison escapes. Drawing on firm empirical evidence from places like India, Tunisia, Canada, the UK, France, Uganda, Italy, Sierra Leone, and Mexico, the authors show how escapes not only break the prison, but are also fundamental to the existence of such institutions: how they are imagined, designed, organized, justified, reproduced and transformed. The chapters are organised in four interconnected themes: resistance and everyday life; politics and transition; imaginaries and popular culture; and law and bureaucracy, which reflect how escapes are productive, local, historical, and equivocal social practices, and integral to the mysterious intransigence of the prison. The result is a critical and theoretically informed understanding of prison escapes – which has so far been absent in prison scholarship – and which will hold broad appeal to academics and students of prisons and penology, as well as practitioners.
Download or read book Suicide Movies written by Steven Stack and published by Hogrefe Publishing GmbH. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How is suicide portrayed in the cinema and what does it mean for suicide prevention? The first-ever comprehensive study of film suicide analyzes more than 1,500 film suicides. The portrayal of suicide in cinema can impact public understanding and effective prevention of suicide. This book presents the first-ever comprehensive analysis of how suicide has been portrayed in films over 110 years, based on a thorough evaluation of more than 1,500 film suicides – 1,377 in American films, 135 in British films. One striking finding is that while the research literature generally attributes suicide to individual psychiatric or mental health issues, cinema and film solidly endorse more social causes. In a compelling blend of social science and humanities approaches, the authors use quantitative methods, as well as the voices of scriptwriters, directors, actors, and actresses, dozens of illustrative frame-grabs, and numerous case examples to answer core questions such as: Are we guilty of over-neglecting social factors in suicide prevention and research? Do cinematic portrayals distort or accurately reflect the nature of suicide in the real world? Has film presentation of suicide changed over 110 years? What are the literary roots of cinema portrayals? This unique book makes fascinating reading for all concerned with suicide prevention, as well as areas such as sociology, film and media studies, and mass communication.
Download or read book Dress Behind Bars written by Juliet Ash and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-11-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From nineteenth-century broad arrows and black and white stripes to twenty first-century orange jumpsuits, prison clothing has both mirrored and bolstered the power of penal institutions over prisoners' lives. Vividly illustrated and based on original research, including throughout the voices of the incarcerated, this book is a pioneering history and investigation of prison dress, which demystifies the experience of what it is like to be an imprisoned criminal. Juliet Ash takes the reader on a journey from the production of prison clothing to the bodies of its wearers. She uncovers a history characterized by waves of reform, sandwiched between regimes that use clothing as punishment and discovers how inmates use their dress to surmount, subvert or survive these punishment cultures. She reveals the hoods, the masks, and pink boxer shorts, near nakedness, even twenty first-century 'civvies' to be not just other types of uniform but political embodiments of the surveillance of everyday life.
Download or read book Bible and Cinema written by Adele Reinhartz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-03-30 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bible and Cinema: An Introduction is a comprehensive examination of how the Bible has been used and represented in mainstream cinema to develop its plots, characters, and themes. The book considers two general types of films: Bible movies that retell biblical stories, such as the Exodus and the life of Jesus, and Bible-related movies that make use of biblical books, stories, verses, and figures, and Bibles themselves to tell non-biblical, often fictional, narratives. Topics covered include: the contribution of Bible and Bible-related movies to the history of the Bible’s reception; the ways in which filmmakers make use of scripture to address and reflect their own time and place; the Bible as a vehicle through which films can address social and political issues, reflect human experiences and emotions, explore existential issues such as evil and death, and express themes such as destruction and redemption; the role of the Bible as a source of ethics and morality, and how this role is both perpetuated and undermined in a range of contemporary Hollywood films; and film as a medium for experiences of transcendence, and the role of the Bible in creating such experiences. This thoroughly updated second edition includes insightful analysis of films such as Noah, Gods and Men, Mary Magdalene, and The Shawshank Redemption, paying attention to visual and aural elements as well as plot, character, and dialogue. The book also includes pedagogical resources including discussions of film theory, as well as key words and discussion questions. Teachers, students, and anyone interested in the intersection of Bible and cinema will find this an invaluable guide to a growing field.
Download or read book Prisons Race and Masculinity in Twentieth century U S Literature and Film written by Peter Caster and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Prisons, Race, and Masculinity, Peter Caster demonstrates the centrality of imprisonment in American culture, illustrating how incarceration, an institution inseparable from race, has shaped and continues to shape U.S. history and literature in the starkest expression of what W. E. B. DuBois famously termed "the problem of the color line." A prison official in 1888 declared that it was the freeing of slaves that actually created prisons: "we had to establish means for their control. Hence came the penitentiary." Such rampant racism co ntributed to the criminalization of black masculinity in the cultural imagination, shaping not only the identity of prisoners (collectively and individually) but also America's national character. Caster analyzes the representations of imprisonment in books, films, and performances, alternating between history and fiction to describe how racism influenced imprisonment during the decline of lynching in the 1930s, the political radicalism in the late 1960s, and the unprecedented prison expansion through the 1980s and 1990s. Offering new interpretations of familiar works by William Faulkner, Eldridge Cleaver, and Norman Mailer, Caster also engages recent films such as American History X, The Hurricane, and The Farm: Life Inside Angola Prison alongside prison history chronicled in the transcripts of the American Correctional Association. This book offers a compelling account of how imprisonment has functioned as racial containment, a matter critical to U.S. history and literary study.
Download or read book Film Genre 2000 written by Wheeler W. Dixon and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2000-02-24 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New essays by prominent film scholars address recent developments in American genre filmmaking.
Download or read book Hollywood Censored written by Gregory D. Black and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After a series of sex scandals rocked the film industry in 1922, movie moguls hired Will Hays to clear the image of movies. Hays tried a variety of ways to regulate movies before adopting what became known as the production code. Written in 1930 by a St Louis priest, the code stipulated that movies stress proper behaviour, respect for government, and 'Christian values'. The Catholic Church reinforced these efforts by launching its Legion of Decency in 1934. Intended to force Hays and Hollywood to censor films, the Legion of Decency engineered the appointment of Joseph Breen as head of the Production Code Administration. For the next three decades, Breen, Hays, and the Catholic Legion of Decency virtually controlled the content of all Hollywood films.
