Filmhistorie, filmteori og filmkritik

Blending biography with critical analysis of more than twenty-five films, What Price Hollywood? tells the story of a once-in-a-generation director who produced some of the best films in history.

Experience the Terrifying Journey of Horror Movies Through the AgesStep into the haunting world of "Dark Cinema: The Evolution of Scare Tactics in Hollywood", a chilling exploration and thought-provoking analysis of the horror genre in film. With each suspense-riddled chapter, you'll delve into a different era and unravel the intricate craftsmanship that goes into invoking fear on the silver screen.This gripping book takes you back to the silent era, when the first pioneers of horror rendered audiences speechless. Imagine being present at the birth of the Golden Age of Hollywood Monsters, diving deep into the macabre brilliance of Universal's iconic creatures and Hitchcock's mastery in psychological horror. As you transition from the eerie black and white frames to technicolor terror, you'll gain newfound respect for the artists behind the grotesque makeup and spine-chilling special effects that still inspire awe today."Dark Cinema" gives you an exclusive seat at the most controversial turn of horror - the rise of psycho-social themes influenced by societal upheaval and moral panic. From the rise of slasher films to heart-pounding psychological thrillers, witness how filmmakers pushed the envelope to redefine what it means to be scared.As you reach more recent times, you'll explore the authenticity that the new millennium's horror genre strives for. With the birth of found footage films to the remakes, reboots, and emerging technologies, get a candid look into modern horror's strive for reality that chaotically blends nostalgia with novelty.Fancy a hair-raising adventure? Allow the evolution of scare tactics in "Dark Cinema" to pull back the curtain on an iconic genre interwoven with our shared cultural anxieties and darkest fears - making for an unforgettable journey. Ready to face your fears?

A collection of original essays and previously untranslated critical writings on the renowned Brazilian documentary filmmaker, Eduardo Coutinho.

Atmosphere, Cinema, Architecture: Thematic Reflections on Ambiance and Place explores cinema and architecture as ambient and affective settings or circumstances that can enable the emergence of atmosphere. This book is an interdisciplinary reading of cinematographic practice which develops useful implications for spatial composition in art and architectural design. The way a film is set up, directed, composed, framed, and technically constructed can provide parallels, analogies and metaphors for the spatial organisation of cities, landscapes and buildings.  Likewise, the way a built setting is conceived and devised can inform approaches to framing and spatial organisation in cinematography. The book begins on a personal note with a series of recollected atmospheric experiences, leading to an investigation of ambiguity and consilient discrepancy as circumstantial conditions necessary for the production of atmosphere. The mood of melancholia is explored to show the pivotal role that ambiguity, discrepancy and irresolution play in its distinctive ambiance. Atmosphere is then defined as an emergent condition arising between an ambient, affective circumstance and a mooded human being. The book then moves to analyse the inherent conditions in the setup of filmic and architectural settings that render them atmospheric. Reference is made to the cinema of Bresson, Resnais, Lynch, Tarr, Malik and Campion, and to Romanesque tympanae, the architectonic scenography of Franz Kafka's novel The Castle and the work of Spanish architects Flores Prats. The concluding section, Anatomy of Atmosphere, is a lexicon of concepts, themes and tactics around atmosphere that might usefully inform creative practice. 

Filmen er det mest substantielt tvetydige, man kan forestille sig. Af denne grund: Film er en uendelig sekvens, der udtrykker virkeligheden med virkeligheden. Der er altid foran enhver af os et muligt og virtuelt filmkamera, med uudtømmeligt chassis, som “filmer” vores liv, fra vi fødes, til vi dør. For hele vores FØRSTE OG RENE sprog er vores væren, virkelighed i virkeligheden.

Contemporary screen industries such as film and television have become primary sites for visualizing borders, migration, maps, and travel as processes of separation and dislocation, but also connection. Migration, Dislocation and Movement on Screen pulls case studies in film and television industries from throughout Europe, North Africa, and Asia to interrogate the nature of movement via moving images. By combining theoretical, interdisciplinary engagements with empirical research, this volume offers a new way to look at screen media's representations of our contemporary world's transnational and cosmopolitan imaginaries.

This book is a phenomenological approach to film sound and film as a whole, bringing all sensory impressions together within the body as a sense of movement. This includes embodied listening, felt sound and the audiovisual chord as a dynamic knot of visual and auditory movements. From this perspective, auditory spaces in film can be used as a pivot between an inner and an external world.

March of the Wooden Soldiers, the 1934 Laurel and Hardy film originally titled Babes in Toyland, has been a holiday classic on TV since the early 1950s. The annual showing on WPIX in New York has kept this film alive in American popular culture, when for many years that film was all but unavailable anywhere else.The film exudes warmth, charm, happiness and a wish for love to conquer evil. The hundreds of people who contributed to making the movie certainly shared those emotions. But, as with any creative collaboration, there were conflicts.Behind the scenes, there were injuries, a divorce, a not-quite-legal marriage, a secret romance, a barroom fistfight, illnesses and a rift that nearly spelled the end of the Laurel and Hardy team. The film was made at great cost - and not just financial. The Laurel and Hardy film is an enduring classic, but it's only part of the fascinating story of Babes in Toyland.Featuring nearly 400 rare photographs, March of the Wooden Soldiers: The Amazing Story of Laurel & Hardy's Babes in Toyland brings the whole story to life.

Explores the "torture" of mannered behavior and the prevalence of etiquette as a theme in classical and contemporary Hollywood and European cinema.

Considers how popular Haitian films not only provide entertainment but also help audiences in Haiti and the diaspora think through daily challenges.

Examines how philosophical concepts like free will, personal identity, and goodness are given an artistic life in films and television programs.

The sensational, lurid, and wickedly entertaining true story of the brothers who invented Hollywood to become the godfathers of cinema - movie moguls Nicholas and Joseph Schenck - studded with glamorous stars, scandals, mobsters, murders, and one legendary blond bombshell. . .Groundbreaking pioneers of the Hollywood Dream Factory, Joseph and Nicholas Schenck may not have been household names like the Warner brothers or Louis B. Mayer, but they were infinitely more powerful, influential—and ruthless. A pair of Russian immigrants with giant ambitions, the Schencks turned their small nickelodeon business in New York’s Bowery into a partnership with Loew’s movie theaters and a controlling interest in three major studios: MGM, 20th Century Fox, and United Artists. They painted the silver screen silver, laid the foundations for the all-powerful studio system, and ruled a global movie empire from their Gatsby-sized mansions on the East and West coasts. The Schencks had become moguls.Their story is the stuff of legends—and their scandals are among the greatest stories Hollywood never told. This riveting, behind-the-scenes account reveals the suprising truth about:The union-busting mob deal that landed Joe Schenck in federal prison for four years—on tax evasion charges including deductions for a menage a trois.The cutthroat and merciless political maneuvering that defined the Hollywood studio heads.The lurid murder charges against silent film star “Fatty” Arbuckle—whose legal defense was paid for by Joe Schenck.Joe’s secret infatuation with Marilyn Monroe, even though Marilyn’s mother named her Norma after Joe’s wife!The brothers’ ingenious creation of the Academy of Motion Pictures and the Oscars—and indomitable control over the entire film industry.From the earliest days of silent films and the swinging era of the Roaring Twenties, through the Golden Age of the studio system and the patriotic call of WWII, to the Red Scare paranoia of the McCarthy years, the history of the Schenck brothers is the story of Hollywood itself—and the endurng power of the American Dream. Moguls is a must-read for film fans, history buffs, and anyone who loves the movies.

"A highly illustrated analysis of fictional sporting events from twenty-six popular movies, including imagined tickets to the competitions, play maps, and other ephemera"--

Xala (1974) by the pioneering Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene, was acclaimed on its release for its scorching critique of postcolonial African society, and it cemented Sembene's status as a wholly new kind of politically engaged, pan-African, auteur film-maker. Centring on the story of businessman El Hadji and the impotence that afflicts him on his marriage to a young third wife, Xala vividly captures the cultural and political upheaval of 1970s Senegal, while suggesting the radical potential of dissent, solidarity and collective action, embodied by El Hadji's student daughter Rama and the group of urban 'undesirables' who act as a kind of raw chorus to the affairs of the neocolonial elite. James S. Williams's lucid study traces Xala's difficult production history and analyses its daring combination of political and domestic drama, oral narrative, social realism, symbolism, satire, documentary, mysticism and Marxist analysis. Yet from its dazzling extended opening sequence of revolution as performance to its suspended climax of redemption through ritualised spitting, Xala presents a series of conceptual and formal challenges that resist a simple reading of the film as allegory. Highlighting often overlooked elements of Sembene's intricate, experimental film-making, including provocative shifts in mood and poetic, even subversively erotic, moments, Williams reveals Xala as a visionary work of both African cinema and Third Cinema that extended the parameters of postcolonial film practice and still resounds today with its searing inventive power.

In this new edition of Licence To Thrill, James Chapman builds upon the success of his classic work, regarded as the definitive scholarly study of the history of the James Bond film series from the first picture, Dr No (1962), to the present. He considers the origins of the films in the spy thrillers of Ian Fleming and examines the production histories of the films in the contexts of the British and international film industries. This edition includes a new introduction and chapters on Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021). Chapman explores how the films have changed over time in response to developments in the wider film culture and society at large. He charts the ever-evolving Bond formula, analysing the films' representations of nationhood, class, and gender in a constantly shifting cinematic and ideological landscape.

TSUI HARK: THE DRAGON MASTER OF CHINESE CINEMA: A Critical Study¿¿¿¿¿ By Jeremy Mark Robinson ¿¿¿¿¿ Tsui Hark is the dragon master of Chinese cinema (Stephen Teo calls Tsui a 'lion dancer among film directors'). Yes - a master, a lion dancer, a sifu, a wizard, a dragon. ¿¿¿¿¿ Tsui Hark is a one-man film industry - as a glance as his list of credits will show, along with setting up his own film company in 1983, Film Workshop. Tsui Hark directs movies like a force of nature. The energy coming off the screen is stupendous. He is a fearless filmmaker, willing to try anything to get a good shot. That feeling of fearlessness, and wildness, coupled with imagination and technical brilliance makes Tsui an incredibly formidable filmmaker. There are very few filmmakers on the scene today with those qualities in such abundance. When you come back to a Tsui Hark picture after looking at other movies for a while, you realize that this guy is so passionate about cinema, so willing to try anything, to experiment, to push the boundaries of what cinema can do, of what cinema can be. This man is on fire. Tsui Hark was born on January 2, 1951 (or February 15; some sources say 1950), in French Cochin China (Saigon, Vietnam). His name was originally Tsui Man-kong (he also been known as Mark Yu). In Cantonese, his name is Chui Hak; in Mandarin, it's Xu Ke. He had sixteen siblings (from three marriages). His father was a pharmacist. Tsui changed his name from 'Tsui Man-kong' to 'Tsui Hark' because he thought it was too soft, and for his 'King Kong' nickname. Tsui grew up in Saigon until the family moved to Hong Kong in 1966 (Tsui said he migrated around the age of 13, which make it 1964; others say he was 14).As a producer, Tsui Hark has been responsible for masterpieces including: the Better Tomorrow series, the Chinese Ghost Story series, the Swordsman series, New Dragon Gate Inn and The Killer, plus a host of hugely enjoyable films, such as: Once Upon a Time in China 4, Once Upon a Time In China 6, Vampire Hunters and Black Mask. Directors often work in contrasts - if they've just done a comedy, they might fancy a drama next. Tsui wanted to do something silly after his first three movies, which were 'very serious and very depressing'. Hence All the Wrong Clues, which was his first commercial hit (in 1981). And since then, Tsui had rarely let a year pass without releasing a movie as a director or producer (sometimes two! Sometimes three!). By 2014, Tsui had directed around 43 feature films. They include the Once Upon a Time In China series, the Detective Dee series, Blade, We're Going To Eat You, The Master, Zu: Warriors From the Magic Mountain, A Better Tomorrow 3, Green Snake, The Lovers, Seven Swords, Journey To the West, Shanghai Blues and Peking Opera Blues. ¿¿¿¿¿ Fully illustrated in colour, with over 240 images from the films of Tsui Hark and other Chinese and Hong Kong productions. With filmography, bibliography and notes. 712 pages. Hardcover, with a full colour laminate cover, and a color jacket (flyleaf). www.crmoon.com

David Fincher's Seven (1995) follows two detectives, David Mills (Brad Pitt) and William Somerset (Morgan Freeman), as they investigate a series of gruesome murders. One of the most acclaimed films of the 1990s, it explores themes of moral decay, human darkness, and the blurred lines between good and evil. Richard Dyer's study of the film, unpacks how its cinematography, sound, and plot combine to create a harrowing account of a world beset by an all-encompassing, irremediable wickedness. He explores the film in terms of sin, story, structure, seriality, sound, sight and salvation, analyzing how Seven both epitomizes and modifies the serial killer genre, which is such a feature of recent cinema.This new edition includes a new afterword by the author, re-assessing the film's lasting impact and influence over contemporary filmmaking aesthetics.

"A poem is an act of faith because the poet believes in it," contends John Wall Barger in The Elephant of Silence, a collection of essays exploring forms of knowing (and not knowing) that awaken a poetic mind. By considering poetry, film, and the intersections among aesthetic moments and our lives, Barger illuminates the foundations of poetic craft but also probes how to be alive, creative, and open in the world. Each piece investigates unanswerable questions and indefinable words: Lorca's duende, Nabokov's poshlost, Bash¿'s underglimmer, Huizinga's ludic, Tarkovsky's Zona. Influenced by poets such as Glück and Ruefle, and filmmakers such as Kubrick and Lynch, Barger writes--first always sharing his own personal life stories--on the nature of perception, experience, and the human mind. With lyric eloquence and disarming candor, The Elephant of Silence tackles how to live an imaginative life, how to gravitate toward the silence from which art comes, and how the mystical is also the everyday.

Unveil the enthralling blend of history and fiction in "Reflection of History in Blood Diamond: The Power of Cinema" authored by DB Thakuri. Immerse yourself in the turbulent world of Sierra Leone's past as this book delves deep into the critically acclaimed film, Blood Diamond (2006), through the lens of new historicism. Discover the social and political realities of the country's civil war during the last decade of the 20th century, witnessing the rise of the Revolutionary United Front, the heart-wrenching use of child soldiers, and the ruthless struggle for diamonds that shaped the nation's destiny. With meticulous research and a new historical perspective, this remarkable exploration blurs the boundaries between fiction and historical truth, leaving you spellbound. Brace yourself for a mesmerizing journey where history vividly springs to life.

Media industry is a vibrant element of East Asian popular culture that has become increasingly important on a global level in the last decades. Japanese, and recently South Korean and Chinese films or TV series have a growing and worldwide audience not least because of easier access through streaming services. The many film productions provide a multifaceted arena of highly diverse content that spans nearly all aspects of the cultural developments in the countries. Religion has always played a major role in these contexts in various ways and in accordance with the highly diversified religious landscape of East Asia. Consequently, this issue brings together contributions on Japanese, Chinese and Korean films, including one additional glimpse to South Asia, thereby presenting portrayals of independent filmmakers, highly renowned classics, but also specimina of manga and anime, the cyberpunk genre, or on most recent highly successful streaming series. The admittedly tiny sample we can provide is intended to pique curiosity and encourage readers to delve deeper into the multifaceted and intriguing relationship between religion and media in Asia. If the presented contributions, which have been carefully selected, lead to academic discourse and inspire further research, then this issue will have served its purpose.

Squatters and fare dodgers, super jams and Chinese in Bavaria, crime thrillers without dead bodies and, time and again, whimsical comedies: the film oeuvre of Manfred Stelzer (1944-2020) is as extensive as it is varied and shows how a politically committed documentary filmmaker of the turbulent seventies managed to remain true to himself and his aspirations even as a busy feature film director in television - whether »Balko«, »Tatort« from Münster or »Polizeiruf 110« from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. This first comprehensive book about the director and screenwriter and his one hundred films from more than four decades brings together images and texts from his large film family as well as from a film studies perspective. All texts are included in German and English. With contributions by: Susanne Beyeler, Kurt Böwe, Jennifer Borrmann, Gerd Conradt, Matthias Dell, Andreas Döhler, Doris Dörrie, Harun Farocki, Robert Fischer, Jan Gympel, Doja Hacker, Gabriele Heberling, Irm Hermann, Lutz Kerschowski, Horst Königstein, Gert C. Möbius, Jakobine Motz, Ludger Pistor, Axel Prahl, Hans Helmut Prinzler, Monika Schmid, Elke Sommer, Beatrice E. Stammer, Gesine Strempel, Sigi Zimmerschied and many others. With greetings from Claudia Roth and Dr. Klaus Lederer.

Essays on the post-modern reception and interpretation of the Middle Ages.