Published by Columbia University Press

Short Cuts

Volumes

Book 2018

Film and the Natural Environment

Elements and Atmospheres

Adam O'Brien

More Cite

Environmental themes are present in cinema more than ever before. But the relationship between film and the natural world is a long and complex one, not reducible to issues such as climate change and pollution. This volume demonstrates how an awareness of natural features and dynamics can enhance our understanding of three key film-studies topics – narrative, genre, and national cinema. It does so by drawing on examples from a broad historical and geographical spectrum, including Sunrise, A River Called Titas, and Profound Desires of the Gods. The first introductory text on a topic which has long been overlooked in the discipline, Film and the Natural Environment argues that the nonhuman world can be understood not just as a theme but as a creative resource available to all filmmakers. It invites readers to consider some of the particular strengths and weaknesses of cinema as communicator of environmental phenomena, and collates ideas and passages from a range of critics and theorists who have contributed to our understanding of moving images and the natural world.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/obri18265
ISBN:: 9780231851107
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2016

The Road Movie

In Search of Meaning

Neil Archer

More Cite

As analyzed in this study, from its most familiar origins in Hollywood the road movie has become a global film practice, whether as a vehicle for exploring the relationship between various national contexts and American cinema, as a means of narrating different national and continental histories, or as a form of individual filmmaking expression

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/arch17647
ISBN:: 9780231850889
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2019

Silent Cinema

Before the Pictures Got Small

Lawrence Napper

More Cite

Since the spectacular success of The Artist (2011) there has been a resurgence of interest in silent cinema, and particularly in the lush and passionate screen dramas of the 1920s. This book offers an introduction to the cinema of this extraordinary period, outlining the development of the form between the end of the First World War and the introduction of synchronized sound at the end of the 1920s. Lawrence Napper addresses the relationship between film aesthetics and the industrial and political contexts of film production through a series of case studies of "national" cinemas. It also focuses on film-going as the most popular leisure activity of the age. Topics such as the star system, cinema buildings, musical accompaniments, film fashions, and fan cultures are addressed—all the elements that ensured that the experience of the pictures was "big." The international dominance of Hollywood is outlined, as are the different responses to that dominance in Britain, Germany, and the USSR. Case studies seek to move beyond the familiar silent canon, and include The Oyster Princess (1919), It (1927), Shooting Stars (1927), and The Girl with the Hatbox (1927).

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/napp18118
ISBN:: 9780231543507
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2017

Prison Movies

Cinema Behind Bars

Kevin Kehrwald

More Cite

Prison Movies: Cinema Behind Bars traces the public fascination with incarceration from the silent era to the present.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/sega18190
ISBN:: 9780231851046
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2017

The Children's Film

Genre, Nation, and Narrative

Noel Brown

More Cite

This book serves as a comprehensive introduction to the children's film, examining its recurrent themes and ideologies, and common narrative and stylistic principles.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/brow18269
ISBN:: 9780231851114
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2019

Film Performance

From Achievement to Appreciation

Andrew Klevan

More Cite

Performers make a crucial contribution to the achievement of narrative films. By moving through exemplary sequences, this book closely follows the movement and behaviour of screen performers – Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Stanwyck, Richard Widmark – and by emphasising their relationship to other aspects of film style – camera, location and plot – it develops accounts that are specific and involved. This study concentrates on films from the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood and moment-by-moment descriptions enable fresh interpretations to emerge and evolve. These reveal the significance and intensity of a performer’s engagement with the world of a film.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/klev6424
ISBN:: 9780231503549
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2020

The Contemporary Superhero Film

Projections of Power and Identity

Terence McSweeney

More Cite

Terence McSweeney provides a concise and up-to-date overview of the superhero genre. He lays out its narrative codes and conventions, exploring why it appeals to diverse audiences and what it has to say about the world in the first two decades of the twenty-first century.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/mcsw19241
ISBN:: 9780231549790
Subject:: Cultural Studies
Subject:: Genres and Media in Cultural Studies
Subject:: Film
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2017

Trash Cinema

The Lure of the Low

Guy Barefoot

More Cite

This volume explores the lower reaches of cinema and its paradoxical appeal. It looks at films from the B-movies of the 1930s to the mockbusters of today, and from the New York underground to the genre variations of Turkey's Yesilçam studios (and their YouTube afterlife). Critically examining the reasons for studying, denigrating, or celebrating the detritus of film history, it also considers the place of a trash aesthetic within and beyond 1960s American avant-garde and looks at the cult of trash in the fanzines of the 1980s. It draws on debates about cult, paracinema, and camp, arguing that trash cinema exists in relation to these but brings with it a particular history that includes the ordinary as well as the strange. Trash Cinema places these debates, and the strand of self-proclaimed low culture that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century, within a historical and international perspective. It focuses on American cinema history but addresses Eurotrash reception as well as the related field of garbology, examining trash cinema as a distinct but fluid category.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/bare18037
ISBN:: 9780231542692
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2021

The Pop Musical

Sweat, Tears, and Tarnished Utopias

Alberto Mira

More Cite

Alberto Mira offers a new account of how pop music revolutionized the Hollywood musical. He shows that while the Hollywood system ceased producing large-scale traditional musicals, different pop strains—disco, rock ’n’ roll, doo-wop, glam, and hip-hop—renewed the genre, giving it a new life.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/mira19123
ISBN:: 9780231549295
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2014

International Politics and Film

Space, Vision, Power

Klaus Dodds, Sean Carter

More Cite

International Politics and Film draws attention to how the relationship between the visual and the spatial is constitutive of international politics

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/cart16971
ISBN:: 9780231169714
ISBN:: 9780231850599
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literary Genres and Media
Subject:: Drama, Theater
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2020

The Stardom Film

Creating the Hollywood Fairy Tale

Karen McNally

More Cite

Since the movie industry’s earliest days, Hollywood has mythologized itself through stories of stardom. In the first book to focus exclusively on these modern fairy tales, Karen McNally traces the history of this genre from silent cinema to contemporary film and television to show its significance to both Hollywood and broader American culture.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/mcna18401
ISBN:: 9780231851145
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2019

Suburban Fantastic Cinema

Growing Up in the Late Twentieth Century

Angus McFadzean

More Cite

Suburban Fantastic Cinema is a study of American movies in which preteen and teenage suburban boys are called upon to combat a disruptive force. Beginning in the 1980s, the suburban fantastic established itself as a popular commercial model combining coming-of-age melodramas with elements drawn from science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/macf18995
ISBN:: 9780231548632
Subject:: Cultural Studies
Subject:: Genres and Media in Cultural Studies
Subject:: Film
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2014

The Heist Film

Stealing with Style

Daryl Lee

More Cite

A concise introduction to the genre about that one last big score, The Heist Film: Stealing With Style traces this crime thriller's development as both a dramatic and comic vehicle growing out of film noir (Criss Cross, The Killers, The Asphalt Jungle), mutating into sleek capers in the 1960s (Ocean's Eleven, Gambit, How to Steal a Million) and splashing across screens in the 2000s in remake after remake (The Thomas Crown Affair, The Italian Job, The Good Thief). Built around a series of case studies (Rififi, Bob le Flambeur, The Killing, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Getaway, the Ocean's trilogy), this volume explores why directors of such varied backgrounds, from studio regulars (Siodmak, Crichton, Siegel, Walsh and Wise) to independents (Anderson, Fuller, Kubrick, Ritchie and Soderbergh), are so drawn to this popular genre.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/lee-16969
ISBN:: 9780231169691
ISBN:: 9780231850582
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2014

Film Theory

Creating a Cinematic Grammar

Felicity Colman

More Cite

Film Theory addresses the core concepts and arguments created or used by academics, critical film theorists, and filmmakers

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/colm16973
ISBN:: 9780231169738
ISBN:: 9780231850605
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2018

Film Censorship

Regulating America's Screen

Sheri Chinen Biesen

More Cite

Film Censorship is a concise overview of Hollywood censorship and efforts to regulate American films. Sheri Chinen Biesen unveils the behind-the-scenes history of cinema censorship and explore how Hollywood responded to censorial constraints on screen content in a changing cultural and industrial landscape.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/bies18313
ISBN:: 9780231851138
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2020

Narrative and Narration

Analyzing Cinematic Storytelling

Warren Buckland

More Cite

Warren Buckland provides a clear and accessible introduction that explains how narrative and narration work using straightforward language. He distills the basic components of cinematic storytelling into a set of core concepts.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/buck18143
ISBN:: 9780231543590
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2015

Postmodernism and Film

Rethinking Hollywood's Aesthestics

Catherine Constable

More Cite

Examines postmodern film aesthetics and challenges to the aesthetic paradigms dominating film analysis

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/cons17455
ISBN:: 9780231174558
ISBN:: 9780231850834
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2015

Film Programming

Curating for Cinemas, Festivals, Archives

Peter Bosma

More Cite

Explores artistic choices in cinema exhibition, focusing on film theaters, film festivals, and film archives

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/bosm17459
ISBN:: 9780231174596
ISBN:: 9780231850827
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literary Genres and Media
Subject:: Drama, Theater
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2014

The Sports Film

Games People Play

Bruce Babington

More Cite

After covering the genre's early history and theorizing its general characteristics, this volume then focuses on specific instances of sports films, such as the biopic, the sports history film, the documentary, the fan film, the boxing film, and explores issues such as gender, race, spectacle and silent comedy. Four major films are then closely analysed – Chariots of Fire, Field of Dreams, the Indian cricket epic Lagaan, and Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday. While recording American film's importance to the genre, the book resists the conventional over-concentration on American cinema and sports by its attention to other cinemas, for example the British, Indian, Australian, South Korean, Thai, German, New Zealand, Spanish, and so on, with the many different sports they depict.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/babi16965
ISBN:: 9780231169653
ISBN:: 9780231850575
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2014

The Gangster Film

Fatal Success in American Cinema

Ron Wilson

More Cite

Examines the gangster film in its historical context with an emphasis on the ways the image of the gangster has adapted and changed

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/wils17207
ISBN:: 9780231172073
ISBN:: 9780231850674
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2014

Bio-pics

A Life in Pictures

Ellen Cheshire

More Cite

Through a carefully selected range of thematically linked bio-pics, explores key issues surrounding their resurgence, structure, production, subject representation or misrepresentation, and critical response

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/ches17205
ISBN:: 9780231172059
ISBN:: 9780231850681
Subject:: Arts
Subject:: Genres
Subject:: Genres, other
Publisher:: Columbia University Press

Book 2019

Twenty-First-Century Hollywood

Rebooting the System

Neil Archer

More Cite

Twenty-First-Century Hollywood looks into the contexts of studio film production in the new century. In an era dominated in box-office terms by the franchise and the family film, this book combines close textual readings and industrial analysis, illustrating why these kinds of movies are favored by producers and audiences alike.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.7312/arch19159
ISBN:: 9780231549455
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literary Genres and Media
Subject:: Drama, Theater
Publisher:: Columbia University Press