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"Kipen's new heresy topples the old orthodoxy by studying the careers of screenwriters past and present in a witty, two-pronged attack: in part one, he dismantles the auteur theory and presents a convincing argument that screenwriters are the guiding creative geniuses behind the best films. In part two, he offers a compendium of mini-biographies of great screenwriters past and present. Who wrote Casablanca? Who wrote Twelve Monkeys? Who wrote Dead Girls Don't Tango? What else did they write?" "It all makes The Schreiber Theory an engaging read and a one-of-a-kind reference for movie lovers and film students alike."--Jacket.
"The end of the Second World War saw the emergence in Italy of the neorealism movement, which produced a number of films characterized by stories set among the poor and working class, often shot on location using non-professional actors. In this study Christopher Wagstaff provides an in-depth analysis of neorealist film, focusing on three films that have had a major impact on filmmakers and audiences around the world: Roberto Rossellini's Roma città aperta and Paisà and Vittorio De Sica's Ladri di biciclette. Indeed, these films are still, more than half a century after they were made, among the most highly regarded works in the history of cinema. In this insightful and carefully researche...
A shadow, in its most literal sense, is the projection of a silhouette against a surface and the obstruction of direct light from hitting that surface. For writers and artists, the shadows cast by their precursors can be either a welcome influence, one consciously evoked in textual production via homage or bricolage, or can manifest as an intrusive, haunting, prohibitive presence, one which threatens to engulf the successor. Many writers and artists are affected by an anxious and ambiguous relationship with their precursors, while others are energised by this relationship. The role that intertextuality plays in creative production invites interrogation, and this publication explores a range ...
Produced in Italy from the turn of the 20th century, "sword and sandal" or peplum films were well received in the silent era and attained great popularity in the 1960s following the release of Hercules (1959), starring Mr. Universe Steve Reeves. A global craze for Bronze Age fantasy-adventures ensued and the heroic exploits of Hercules, Maciste, Samson and Goliath were soon a mainstay of American drive-ins and second-run theaters (though mainly disparaged by critics). By 1965, the genre was eclipsed by the spaghetti western, yet the 1960s peplum canon continues to inspire Hollywood epics. This filmography provides credits, cast and comments for dozens of films from 1908 through 1990.
Focusing on crime fiction and films that artfully combine comedy and misdeed, this book explores the reasons writers and filmmakers inject humor into their work and identifies the various comic techniques they use. The author covers both American and European books from the 1930s to the present, by such authors as Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler, Robert B. Parker, Elmore Leonard, Donald E. Westlake, Sue Grafton, Carl Hiaasen and Janet Evanovich, along with films from The Thin Man to the BBC's Sherlock series.
The first collection of letters in English by one of the great writers of the twentieth century This is the first collection in English of the extraordinary letters of one of the great writers of the twentieth century. Italy's most important postwar novelist, Italo Calvino (1923-1985) achieved worldwide fame with such books as Cosmicomics, Invisible Cities, and If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. But he was also an influential literary critic, an important literary editor, and a masterful letter writer whose correspondents included Umberto Eco, Primo Levi, Gore Vidal, Leonardo Sciascia, Natalia Ginzburg, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Luciano Berio. This book includes a ge...
Publisher description
Elio Petri (1929-1982) was one of the most commercially successful and critically revered Italian directors ever. A cultured intellectual and a politically committed filmmaker, Petri made award-winning movies that touched controversial social, religious, and political themes, such as the Mafia in We Still Kill the Old Way (1967), police brutality in Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), and workers' struggles in Lulu the Tool (1971). His work also explored genre in a thought-provoking and refreshing manner with a taste for irony and the grotesque: among his best works are the science fiction satire The 10th Victim (1965), the ghost story A Quiet Place in the Country (1968), and the grotesque giallo Todo modo (1976). This book examines Elio Petri's life and career, and places his work within the social and political context of postwar Italian culture, politics, and cinema. It includes a detailed production history and critical analysis of each of his films, plenty of never-before-seen bits of information recovered from the Italian ministerial archives, and an in-depth discussion of the director's unfilmed projects.
Since the silent days of cinema, Westerns have been one of the most popular genres, not just in the United States but around the world. International filmmakers have been so taken by westerns that many directors have produced versions of their own, despite lacking access to the American West. Nowhere has the Western been more embraced outside of the United States than Italy. In the 1960s, as Hollywood heroes like John Wayne and Randolph Scott were aging, Italian filmmakers were revitalizing the western, securing younger American actors for their productions and also making stars of homegrown talent. Movies directed and produced by Italians have been branded “spaghetti westerns”—a genre...