Download or read book Contemporary Hollywood Cinema written by STEVE NEALE and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive overview of the film industry in Hollywood today, Contemporary Hollywood Cinema brings together leading international cinema scholars to explore the technology, institutions, film makers and movies of contemporary American film making.
Download or read book Making Films in Contemporary Hollywood written by Alan Lovell and published by Bloomsbury Academic. This book was released on 2005-02-25 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditionally, film critics have concentrated on the director, seeing feature filmmaking as a form of individual expression. The authors challenge this view, arguing that filmmaking is a form of collection expression. They examine the idea that many individuals, including editors, cinematographers and sound designers, contribute to the making of a film, and argue that it is misleading to classify them as technicians. The authors consider is how money and power determines the structure within which all those involved with filmmaking work. And, in challenging the accepted view of the dynamics of filmmaking, the book raises questions about the nature of the feature film. Is it essentially a visual form? What place does it have? How important is the script? Making Films in Contemporary Hollywood contains analysis, interviews and case studies of Chinatown, Jurassic Park, and When Harry Met Sally, bringing a fresh perspective to the study of filmmaking that will be both informative and provocative for Media and Film Studies students at all levels.
Download or read book The Persistence of Whiteness written by Daniel Bernardi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-09-12 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Persistence of Whiteness investigates the representation and narration of race in contemporary Hollywood cinema. Ideologies of class, ethnicity, gender, nation and sexuality are central concerns as are the growth of the business of filmmaking. Focusing on representations of Black, Asian, Jewish, Latina/o and Native Americans identities, this collection also shows how whiteness is a fact everywhere in contemporary Hollywood cinema, crossing audiences, authors, genres, studios and styles. Bringing together essays from respected film scholars, the collection covers a wide range of important films, including Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Color Purple, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. Essays also consider genres from the western to blaxploitation and new black cinema; provocative filmmakers such as Melvin Van Peebles and Steven Spielberg and stars including Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Lopez. Daniel Bernardi provides an in-depth introduction, comprehensive bibliography and a helpful glossary of terms, thus providing students with an accessible and topical collection on race and ethnicity in contemporary cinema.
Download or read book Postfeminism and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema written by J. Gwynne and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-06-28 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By analyzing the negotiation of femininities and masculinities within contemporary Hollywood cinema, Postfeminism and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema presents diverse interrogations of popular cinema and illustrates the need for a renewed scholarly focus on contemporary film production.
Download or read book The Way Hollywood Tells It written by David Bordwell and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006-04-10 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hollywood moviemaking is one of the constants of American life, but how much has it changed since the glory days of the big studios? David Bordwell argues that the principles of visual storytelling created in the studio era are alive and well, even in today’s bloated blockbusters. American filmmakers have created a durable tradition—one that we should not be ashamed to call artistic, and one that survives in both mainstream entertainment and niche-marketed indie cinema. Bordwell traces the continuity of this tradition in a wide array of films made since 1960, from romantic comedies like Jerry Maguire and Love Actually to more imposing efforts like A Beautiful Mind. He also draws upon testimony from writers, directors, and editors who are acutely conscious of employing proven principles of plot and visual style. Within the limits of the "classical" approach, innovation can flourish. Bordwell examines how imaginative filmmakers have pushed the premises of the system in films such as JFK, Memento, and Magnolia. He discusses generational, technological, and economic factors leading to stability and change in Hollywood cinema and includes close analyses of selected shots and sequences. As it ranges across four decades, examining classics like American Graffiti and The Godfather as well as recent success like The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, this book provides a vivid and engaging interpretation of how Hollywood moviemakers have created a vigorous, resourceful tradition of cinematic storytelling that continues to engage audiences around the world.
Download or read book Designs on Film written by Cathy Whitlock and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who can forget the over-the-top, white-on-white, high-gloss interiors through which Fred Astaire danced in Top Hat? The modernist high-rise architecture, inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, in the adaptation of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead? The lavish, opulent drawing rooms of Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence? Through the use of film design—called both art direction and production design in the film industry—movies can transport us to new worlds of luxury, highlight the ornament of the everyday, offer a vision of the future, or evoke the realities of a distant era. In Designs on Film, journalist and interior designer Cathy Whitlock illuminates the often undercelebrated role of the production designer in the creation of the most memorable moments in film history. Through a lush collection of rare archival photographs, Whitlock narrates the evolving story of art direction over the course of a century—from the massive Roman architecture of Ben-Hur to the infamous Dakota apartment in Rosemary's Baby to the digital CGI wonders of Avatar's Pandora. Drawing on insights from the most prominent Hollywood production designers and the historical knowledge of the venerable Art Directors Guild, Whitlock delves into the detailed process of how sets are imagined, drawn, built, and decorated. Designs on Film is the must-have look book for film lovers, movie buffs, and anyone looking to draw interior design inspiration from the constructions and confections of Hollywood. Whitlock lifts the curtain on movie magic and celebrates the many ways in which art direction and set design allow us to lose ourselves in the diverse worlds showcased on the big screen.
Download or read book Hollywood Hybrids written by Ira Jaffe and published by Genre and Beyond: A Film Studies Series. This book was released on 2008 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'He wanted to move in and out of the various signature styles of all these genres_Western, melodrama, thriller, horror, ' said cinematographer Robert Richardson of Quentin Tarantino's goals in making Kill Bill: Vols. 1 & 2. Through close readings of work by major U.S. filmmakers such as Tarantino, David Lynch, Errol Morris, Todd Haynes, and Joel and Ethan Coen, Hollywood Hybrids studies provocative, disorienting strategies of genre mixing in contemporary cinema. The book also investigates foreign parallels to U.S. hybrid cinema in films by such directors as Pedro Almod-var (Spain) and Stephen Chow (Hong Kong). Rather than explore genre primarily from the standpoint of movie critics, producers, marketers, and spectators, Hollywood Hybrids focuses on genre mixing as a key creative interest motivating celebrated filmmakers. The book thus relates genre to auteur theory. Hollywood Hybrids also links recent hybrid cinema to earlier instances of hybrid form in film and other arts, including painting, music, literature, and architecture. The book concludes that hybrid films allude not only to multiple films and genres, but also to hybrid features of consciousness and identity that increasingly heighten as well as complicate human experience.
Download or read book Not Hollywood written by Sherry B. Ortner and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-27 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The pioneering anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner combines her trademark ethnographic expertise with critical film interpretation to explore the independent film scene in New York and Los Angeles since the late 1980s. Not Hollywood is both a study of the lived experience of that scene and a critical examination of America as seen through the lenses of independent filmmakers. Based on interviews with scores of directors and producers, Ortner reveals the culture and practices of indie filmmaking, including the conviction of those involved that their films, unlike Hollywood movies, are "telling the truth" about American life. These films often illuminate the dark side of American society through narratives about the family, the economy, and politics in today's neoliberal era. Offering insightful interpretations of many of these films, Ortner argues that during the past three decades independent American cinema has functioned as a vital form of cultural critique.
Download or read book Hollywood Cinema and the Real Los Angeles written by Mark Shiel and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hollywood cinema and Los Angeles cannot be understood apart. Hollywood Cinema and the Real Los Angeles traces the interaction of the real city, its movie business, and filmed image, focusing on the crucial period from the construction of the first studios in the 1910s to the decline of the studio system fifty years later. As Los Angeles gradually became one of the ten largest cities in the world, the film industry made key contributions to its rapid growth and frequent crises in economic, social, political and cultural life. Whether filmmakers engaged with the real city on location or recreated it on a studio set, Los Angeles shaped the films that were made there and circulated influentially worldwide. The book pays particular attention to early cinema, slapstick comedy, movies about the movies and film noir, which are each explored in new ways, with an emphasis on urban and architectural space and its representation, as well as filmmaking style and technique. Including many previously unpublished photographs and new historical evidence, Hollywood Cinema and the Real Los Angeles gives us a never-before-seen view of the City of Angels.
Download or read book High Concept written by Justin Wyatt and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-07-22 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steven Spielberg once said, "I like ideas, especially movie ideas, that you can hold in your hand. If a person can tell me the idea in twenty-five words or less, it's going to make a pretty good movie." Spielberg's comment embodies the essence of the high concept film, which can be condensed into one simple sentence that inspires marketing campaigns, lures audiences, and separates success from failure at the box office. This pioneering study explores the development and dominance of the high concept movie within commercial Hollywood filmmaking since the late 1970s. Justin Wyatt describes how box office success, always important in Hollywood, became paramount in the era in which major film studios passed into the hands of media conglomerates concerned more with the economics of filmmaking than aesthetics. In particular, he shows how high concept films became fully integrated with their marketing, so that a single phrase ("Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...") could sell the movie to studio executives and provide copy for massive advertising campaigns; a single image or a theme song could instantly remind potential audience members of the movie, and tie-in merchandise could generate millions of dollars in additional income.
Download or read book Contemporary Hollywood Animation written by Noel Brown and published by Traditions in American Cinema. This book was released on 2022-11-30 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analysing dozens of key animated films, the book examines the emergence of new genres and stylistic approaches, as well as the ongoing blurring of boundaries between animation and live-action and explores how animation in the United States both responds to and recapitulates the values, beliefs, hopes and fears of the nation.
Download or read book Almost Hollywood Nearly New Orleans written by Vicki Mayer and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017-02-24 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Early in the twenty-first century, Louisiana, one of the poorest states in the United States, redirected millions in tax dollars from the public coffers in an effort to become the top location site globally for the production of Hollywood films and television series. Why would lawmakers support such a policy? Why would citizens accept the policy’s uncomfortable effects on their economy and culture? Almost Hollywood, Nearly New Orleans addresses these questions through a study of the local and everyday experiences of the film economy in New Orleans, Louisiana—a city that has twice pursued the goal of becoming a movie production capital. From the silent era to today’s Hollywood South, Vicki Mayer explains that the aura of a film economy is inseparable from a prevailing sense of home, even as it changes that place irrevocably.
Download or read book Post Classical Hollywood written by Barry Langford and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the end of World War II, Hollywood basked in unprecedented prosperity. Since then, numerous challenges and crises have changed the American film industry in ways beyond imagination in 1945. Nonetheless, at the start of a new century Hollywood's worldwide dominance is intact - indeed, in today's global economy the products of the American entertainment industry (of which movies are now only one part) are more ubiquitous than ever. How does today's "e;Hollywood"e; - absorbed into transnational media conglomerates like NewsCorp., Sony, and Viacom - differ from the legendary studios of Hollywood's Golden Age? What are the dominant frameworks and conventions, the historical contexts and the governing attitudes through which films are made, marketed and consumed today? How have these changed across the last seven decades? And how have these evolving contexts helped shape the form, the style and the content of Hollywood movies, from Singin' in the Rain to Pirates of the Caribbean? Barry Langford explains and interrogates the concept of "e;post-classical"e; Hollywood cinema - its coherence, its historical justification and how it can help or hinder our understanding of Hollywood from the forties to the present. Integrating film history, discussion of movies' social and political dimensions, and analysis of Hollywood's distinctive methods of storytelling, Post-Classical Hollywood charts key critical debates alongside the histories they interpret, while offering its own account of the "e;post-classical."e; Wide-ranging yet concise, challenging and insightful, Post-Classical Hollywood offers a new perspective on the most enduringly fascinating artform of our age.
Download or read book Reinventing Hollywood written by David Bordwell and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: the way Hollywood told it -- The frenzy of five fat years; Interlude: Spring 1940: lessons from our town
Download or read book Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies written by Warren Buckland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-03 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Film theory no longer gets top billing or plays a starring role in film studies today, as critics proclaim that theory is dead and we are living in a post-theory moment. While theory may be out of the limelight, it remains an essential key to understanding the full complexity of cinema, one that should not be so easily discounted or discarded. In this volume, contributors explore recent popular movies through the lens of film theory, beginning with industrial-economic analysis before moving into a predominately aesthetic and interpretive framework. The Hollywood films discussed cover a wide range from 300 to Fifty First Dates, from Brokeback Mountain to Lord of the Rings, from Spider-Man 3 to Fahrenheit 9/11, from Saw to Raiders of the Lost Ark, and much more. Individual essays consider such topics as the rules that govern new blockbuster franchises, the ‘posthumanist realism’ of digital cinema, video game adaptations, increasingly restricted stylistic norms, the spatial stories of social networks like YouTube, the mainstreaming of queer culture, and the cognitive paradox behind enjoyable viewing of traumatic events onscreen. With its cast of international film scholars, Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies demonstrates the remarkable contributions theory can offer to film studies and moviegoers alike.
Download or read book Directed by Steven Spielberg written by Warren Buckland and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the blockbuster is the most popular and commercially successful type of filmmaking, it has yet to be studied seriously from a formalist standpoint. This is in opposition to classical Hollywood cinema and International Art cinema, whose form has been analyzed and deconstructed in great detail. Directed By Steven Spielberg fills this gap by examining the distinctive form of the blockbuster. The book focuses on Spielberg's blockbusters, because he is the most consistent and successful director of this type of film - he defines the standard by which other Hollywood blockbusters are judged and compared. But how did Spielberg attain this position? Film critics and scholars generally agree that Spielberg's blockbusters have a unique look and use visual storytelling techniques to their utmost effectiveness. In this book, Warren Buckland examines Spielberg's distinct manipulation of film form, and his singular use of stylistic and narrative techniques. The book demonstrates the aesthetic options available to Spielberg, and particularly the choices he makes in structuring his blockbusters. Buckland emphasizes the director's activity in making a film (particularly such a powerful director as Spielberg), including: visualizing the scene on paper via storyboards; staging and blocking the scene; selecting camera placement and movement; determining the progression or flow of the film from shot to shot; and deciding how to narrate the story to the spectator. Directed By Steven Spielberg combines film studies scholarship with the approach taken by many filmmaking manuals. The unique value of the book lies in its grounding of formal film analysis in filmmaking.
Download or read book Runaway Hollywood written by Daniel Steinhart and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After World War II, as cultural and industry changes were reshaping Hollywood, movie studios shifted some production activities overseas, capitalizing on frozen foreign earnings, cheap labor, and appealing locations. Hollywood unions called the phenomenon “runaway” production to underscore the outsourcing of employment opportunities. Examining this period of transition from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, Runaway Hollywood shows how film companies exported production around the world and the effect this conversion had on industry practices and visual style. In this fascinating account, Daniel Steinhart uses an array of historical materials to trace the industry’s creation of a more international production operation that merged filmmaking practices from Hollywood and abroad to produce movies with a greater global scope.
