Middlebrow Cinema

Middlebrow Cinema PDF Author: Sally Faulkner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317247418
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Get Book

Book Description
Middlebrow Cinema challenges an often uninterrogated hostility to middlebrow culture that frequently dismisses it as conservative, which it often is not, and feminized or middle-class, which it often is. The volume defines the term relationally against shifting concepts of ‘high’ and ‘low’, and considers its deployment in connection with text, audience and institution. In exploring the concept of the middlebrow, this book recovers films that were widely meaningful to contemporary audiences, yet sometimes overlooked by critics interested in popular and arthouse extremes. It also addresses the question of socially-mobile audiences, who might express their aspirations through film-watching; and traces the cultural consequences of the movement of films across borders and between institutions. The first study of its kind, the volume comprises 11 original essays that test the purchase of the term ‘middlebrow’ across cultures, including those of Europe, Asia and the Americas, from the 1930s to the present day. Middlebrow Cinema brings into view a popular and aspirational - and thus especially relevant and dynamic - area of film and film culture. Ideal for students and researchers in this area, this book: Remaps ‘Popular’ and ‘arthouse’ approaches Explores British, Chinese, French, Indian, Mexican, Spanish ‘national’ cinemas alongside Continental, Hollywood, Queer, Transnational cinemas Analyses Biopic, Heritage, Historical Film, Melodrama, Musical, Sex Comedy genres.

Middlebrow Cinema

Middlebrow Cinema PDF Author: Sally Faulkner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317247418
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Get Book

Book Description
Middlebrow Cinema challenges an often uninterrogated hostility to middlebrow culture that frequently dismisses it as conservative, which it often is not, and feminized or middle-class, which it often is. The volume defines the term relationally against shifting concepts of ‘high’ and ‘low’, and considers its deployment in connection with text, audience and institution. In exploring the concept of the middlebrow, this book recovers films that were widely meaningful to contemporary audiences, yet sometimes overlooked by critics interested in popular and arthouse extremes. It also addresses the question of socially-mobile audiences, who might express their aspirations through film-watching; and traces the cultural consequences of the movement of films across borders and between institutions. The first study of its kind, the volume comprises 11 original essays that test the purchase of the term ‘middlebrow’ across cultures, including those of Europe, Asia and the Americas, from the 1930s to the present day. Middlebrow Cinema brings into view a popular and aspirational - and thus especially relevant and dynamic - area of film and film culture. Ideal for students and researchers in this area, this book: Remaps ‘Popular’ and ‘arthouse’ approaches Explores British, Chinese, French, Indian, Mexican, Spanish ‘national’ cinemas alongside Continental, Hollywood, Queer, Transnational cinemas Analyses Biopic, Heritage, Historical Film, Melodrama, Musical, Sex Comedy genres.

Middlebrow Cinema

Middlebrow Cinema PDF Author: Sally Faulkner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131724740X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book

Book Description
Middlebrow Cinema challenges an often uninterrogated hostility to middlebrow culture that frequently dismisses it as conservative, which it often is not, and feminized or middle-class, which it often is. The volume defines the term relationally against shifting concepts of ‘high’ and ‘low’, and considers its deployment in connection with text, audience and institution. In exploring the concept of the middlebrow, this book recovers films that were widely meaningful to contemporary audiences, yet sometimes overlooked by critics interested in popular and arthouse extremes. It also addresses the question of socially-mobile audiences, who might express their aspirations through film-watching; and traces the cultural consequences of the movement of films across borders and between institutions. The first study of its kind, the volume comprises 11 original essays that test the purchase of the term ‘middlebrow’ across cultures, including those of Europe, Asia and the Americas, from the 1930s to the present day. Middlebrow Cinema brings into view a popular and aspirational - and thus especially relevant and dynamic - area of film and film culture. Ideal for students and researchers in this area, this book: Remaps ‘Popular’ and ‘arthouse’ approaches Explores British, Chinese, French, Indian, Mexican, Spanish ‘national’ cinemas alongside Continental, Hollywood, Queer, Transnational cinemas Analyses Biopic, Heritage, Historical Film, Melodrama, Musical, Sex Comedy genres.

A History of Spanish Film

A History of Spanish Film PDF Author: Sally Faulkner
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1623567424
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book

Book Description
A History of Spanish Film explores Spanish film from the beginnings of the industry to the present day by combining some of the most exciting work taking place in film studies with some of the most urgent questions that have preoccupied twentieth-century Spain. It addresses new questions in film studies, like 'prestige film' and 'middlebrow cinema', and places these in the context of a country defined by social mobility, including the 1920s industrial boom, the 1940s post-Civil War depression, and the mass movement into the middle classes from the 1960s onwards. Close textual analysis of some 42 films from 1910-2010 provides an especially useful avenue into the study of this cinema for the student. - Uniquely offers extensive close readings of 42 films, which are especially useful to students and teachers of Spanish cinema. - Analyses Spanish silent cinema and films of the Franco era as well as contemporary examples. - Interrogates film's relations with other media, including literature, pictorial art and television. - Explores both 'auteur' and 'popular' cinemas. - Establishes 'prestige' and the 'middlebrow' as crucial new terms in Spanish cinema studies. - Considers the transnationality of Spanish cinema throughout its century of existence. - Contemporary directors covered in this book include Almodóvar, Bollaín, Díaz Yanes and more.

The Routledge Companion to European Cinema

The Routledge Companion to European Cinema PDF Author: Gábor Gergely
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000512290
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 484

Get Book

Book Description
Presenting new and diverse scholarship, this wide-ranging collection of 43 original chapters asks what European cinema tells us about Europe. The book engages with European cinema that attends to questions of European colonial, racialized and gendered power; seeks to decentre Europe itself (not merely its putative centres); and interrogate Europe’s various conceptualizations from a variety of viewpoints. It explores the broad, complex and heterogeneous community/ies produced in and by European films, taking in Kurdish, Hollywood and Singapore cinema as comfortably as the cinema of Poland, Spanish colonial films or the European gangster genre. Chapters cover numerous topics, including individual films, film movements, filmmakers, stars, scholarship, representations and identities, audiences, production practices, genres and more, all analysed in their context(s) so as to construct an image of Europe as it emerges from Europe’s film corpus. The Companion opens the study of European cinema to a broad readership and is ideal for students and scholars in film, European studies, queer studies and cultural studies, as well as historians with an interest in audio-visual culture, nationalism and transnationalism, and those working in language-based area studies.

The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture

The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture PDF Author: Tom Brown
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135950377
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Get Book

Book Description
The biographical film or biopic is a staple of film production in all major film industries and yet, within film studies, its generic, aesthetic, and cultural significance has remained underexplored. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture fills this gap, conceptualizing the biopic with a particular eye toward the "life" of the genre internationally. New theoretical approaches combine with specially commissioned chapters on contemporary biographical film production in India, Italy, South Korea, France, Russia, Great Britain, and the US, in order to present a selective but well-rounded portrait of the biopic’s place in film culture. From Marie Antoinette to The Social Network, the pieces in this volume critically examine the place of the biopic within ongoing debates about how cinema can and should represent history and "real lives." Contributors discuss the biopic’s grounding in the conventions of the historical film, and explore the genre’s defining traits as well as its potential for innovation. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture expands the critical boundaries of this evolving, versatile genre.

Mass Producing European Cinema

Mass Producing European Cinema PDF Author: Christopher Meir
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501327097
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book

Book Description
Equal parts historical study, industrial analysis and critical survey of some of the most important films and television programs in recent European history, this book gives readers an overview of the development and output of this important company while also giving them a ringside seat for the latest round of the oldest battle in the film business. With films like Lucy, The Impossible and Paddington, European studios are producing hits that are unprecedented in terms of global success. Christopher Meir delves into StudioCanal, the foremost European company in the contemporary film and television industries, and chronicles its rise from a small production subsidiary of Canal Plus to being the most important global challenger to Hollywood's dominance.

Transnational European Cinema

Transnational European Cinema PDF Author: Huw D. Jones
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031445953
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 283

Get Book

Book Description
This book explores how audiences in contemporary Europe engage with films from other European countries. It draws on admissions data, surveys, and focus group discussions from across the continent to explain why viewers are attracted to particular European films, nationalities, and genres, including action-adventures, family films, animations, biopics, period dramas, thrillers, comedies, contemporary drama, and romance. It also examines how these films are financed, produced, and distributed, how they represent Europe and other Europeans, and how they affect audiences. Case-studies range from mainstream movies like Skyfall, Taken, Asterix & Obelix: God Save Britannia, and Sammy’s Adventures: A Turtle’s Tale to more middlebrow and arthouse titles, such as The Lives of Others, Volver, Coco Before Chanel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Intouchables, The Angels’ Share, Ida, The Hunt, and Blue Is the Warmest Colour. The study shows that watching European films can sometimes improve people’s understandings of other countries and make them feel more European. However, this is limited by the strong preference for Anglo-American action-adventures that offer few insights into the realities of European life. While some popular European arthouse films explore a wider range of nationalities, social issues, and historical events, these mainly appeal to urban-dwelling graduates. They can also sometimes accentuate tensions between Europeans instead of bringing them together. The book discusses what these findings mean for the European film industry, audiovisual policy, and scholarship on transnational and European cinema. It also considers how surveys, focus groups, databases and other methods that go beyond traditional textual analysis can offer new insights into our understanding of film.

A Companion to British and Irish Cinema

A Companion to British and Irish Cinema PDF Author: John Hill
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118482832
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 639

Get Book

Book Description
A stimulating overview of the intellectual arguments and critical debates involved in the study of British and Irish cinemas British and Irish film studies have expanded in scope and depth in recent years, prompting a growing number of critical debates on how these cinemas are analysed, contextualized, and understood. A Companion to British and Irish Cinema addresses arguments surrounding film historiography, methods of textual analysis, critical judgments, and the social and economic contexts that are central to the study of these cinemas. Twenty-nine essays from many of the most prominent writers in the field examine how British and Irish cinema have been discussed, the concepts and methods used to interpret and understand British and Irish films, and the defining issues and debates at the heart of British and Irish cinema studies. Offering a broad scope of commentary, the Companion explores historical, cultural and aesthetic questions that encompass over a century of British and Irish film studies—from the early years of the silent era to the present-day. Divided into five sections, the Companion discusses the social and cultural forces shaping British and Irish cinema during different periods, the contexts in which films are produced, distributed and exhibited, the genres and styles that have been adopted by British and Irish films, issues of representation and identity, and debates on concepts of national cinema at a time when ideas of what constitutes both ‘British’ and ‘Irish’ cinema are under question. A Companion to British and Irish Cinema is a valuable and timely resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students of film, media, and cultural studies, and for those seeking contemporary commentary on the cinemas of Britain and Ireland.

British Cinema, Past and Present

British Cinema, Past and Present PDF Author: Justine Ashby
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135125155
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 410

Get Book

Book Description
British Cinema: Past and Present responds to the commercial and critical success of British film in the 1990s. Providing a historical perspective to the contemporary resurgence of British cinema, this unique anthology brings together leading international scholars to investigate the rich diversity of British film production, from the early sound period of the 1930s to the present day. The contributors address: * British Cinema Studies and the concept of national cinema * the distribution and reception of British films in the US and Europe * key genres, movements and cycles of British cinema in the 1940s, 50s and 60s * questions of authorship and agency, with case studies of individual studios, stars, producers and directors * trends in British cinema, from propaganda films of the Second World War to the New Wave and the 'Swinging London' films of the Sixties * the representation of marginalised communities in films such as Trainspotting and The Full Monty * the evolution of social realism from Saturday Night, Sunday Morning to Nil By Mouth * changing approaches to Northern Ireland and the Troubles in films like The Long Good Friday and Alan Clarke's Elephant * contemporary 'art' and 'quality' cinema, from heritage drama to the work of Peter Greenaway, Derek Jarman, Terence Davies and Patrick Keiller.

The Figure of the Migrant in Contemporary European Cinema

The Figure of the Migrant in Contemporary European Cinema PDF Author: Temenuga Trifonova
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501362496
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Get Book

Book Description
The Figure of the Migrant in Contemporary European Cinema explores contemporary debates around the concepts of 'Europe' and 'European identity' through an examination of recent European films dealing with various aspects of globalization (the refugee crisis, labour migration, the resurgence of nationalism and ethnic violence, neoliberalism, post-colonialism) with a particular attention to the figure of the migrant and the ways in which this figure challenges us to rethink Europe and its core Enlightenment values (citizenship, justice, ethics, liberty, tolerance, and hospitality) in a post-national context of ephemerality, volatility, and contingency that finds people desperately looking for firmer markers of identity. The book argues that a compelling case can be made for re-orienting the study of contemporary European cinema around the figure of the migrant viewed both as a symbolic figure (representing post-national citizenship, urbanization, the 'gap' between ethics and justice) and as a figure occupying an increasingly central place in European cinema in general rather than only in what is usually called 'migrant and diasporic cinema'. By drawing attention to the structural and affective affinities between the experience of migrants and non-migrants, Europeans and non-Europeans, Trifonova shows that it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate stories about migration from stories about life under neoliberalism in general