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French comedy films occupy a specific cultural space and are influenced by national traditions and shared cultural references, but at the same time they have always been difficult to classify. This book investigates the different methods in which these comedies textually inscribed and exemplified a variety of cultural and historical landmarks.
To a large extent, the story of French filmmaking is the story of moviemaking. From the earliest flickering images of the late nineteenth century through the silent era, Surrealist influences, the Nazi Occupation, the glories of the New Wave, the rebirth of the industry in the 1990s with the exception culturelle, and the present, Rémi Lanzoni examines a considerable number of the world's most beloved films. Building upon his 2004 best-selling edition, the second edition of French Cinema maintains the chronological analysis, factual reliability, ease of use, and accessible prose, while at once concentrating more on the current generation of female directors, mainstream productions such as The Artist and The Intouchables, and the emergence of minority filmmakers (Beur cinema).
'Comedy Italian Style' is an essential guide to the glorious works and filmmakers who make the world laugh with them. It is for all lovers of enduring, wry, over-the-top, side-splitting humour on film.
Before the turn of the twentieth century, before the nickelodeon, even before the first cinemas, Georges Méliès began making movies.. Directing, editing, producing, designing, and starring in over 500 films between 1896 to 1912, Méliès was also the first cinematic auteur.. This is the first study of Méliès's films to appear in English in over twenty years and the only book to interpret his work using the tools of modern film analysis.. Locates the roots of modern narrative cinema in Méliès's work, identifying techniques of editing and mise-en-scène previously thought to have originated with D. W. Griffith.
Before turning to filmmaking, Francois Truffaut was a film critic writing for Cahiers du Cinema during the 1950s. The Early film Criticism of Francois Truffaut makes available, for the first time in English, articles that originally appeared in French journals such as Cahiers du Cinema and Arts. Truffaut discusses films by such acknowledged masters as Hitchcock, Huston, Dymytryk, and Lang, but also examines the work of such lesser-known directors as Robert Wise, Don Weis, and Roger Vadim.
What Cinema Is! offers an engaging answer to Andre Bazin's famous question, exploring his 'idea of cinema' with a sweeping look back at the near century of Cinema's phenomenal ascendancy. Written by one of the foremost film scholars of our time Establishes cinema's distinction from the current enthusiasm over audio-visual entertainment, without relegating cinema to a single, older mode Examines cinema's institutions and its social force through the qualities of key films Traces the history of an idea that has made cinema supremely alive to (and in) our times
When the World Laughs is a book about the intersection of humor, history, and culture. It explores how film comedy, one of the world's most popular movie genres, reflects the values and beliefs of those who enjoy its many forms, its most enduring characters and stories, its most entertaining routines and funniest jokes. What people laugh at in Europe, Africa, or the Far East reveals important truths about their differences and common bonds. By investigating their traditions of humor, by paying close attention to what kinds of comedy cross national boundaries or what gets lost in translation, this study leads us to a deeper understanding of each other and ourselves. Section One begins with a ...
Jacking in to the Matrix franchise', edited by Matthew Kapell and William G. Doty, is a fascinating collection of essays on the movie sensation 'The Matrix Trilogy.
The French New Wave cinema is arguably the most fascinating of all film movements, famous for its exuberance, daring, and avant-garde techniques. A History of the French New Wave Cinema offers a fresh look at the social, economic, and aesthetic mechanisms that shaped French film in the 1950s, as well as detailed studies of the most important New Wave movies of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Richard Neupert first tracks the precursors to New Wave cinema, showing how they provided blueprints for those who would follow. He then demonstrates that it was a core group of critics-turned-directors from the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma—especially François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Jean-Luc God...
There are no clear demarcation lines between magic, astrology, necromancy, medicine, and even sciences in the pre-modern world. Under the umbrella term 'magic,' the contributors to this volume examine a wide range of texts, both literary and religious, both medical and philosophical, in which the topic is discussed from many different perspectives. The fundamental concerns address issue such as how people perceived magic, whether they accepted it and utilized it for their own purposes, and what impact magic might have had on the mental structures of that time. While some papers examine the specific appearance of magicians in literary texts, others analyze the practical application of magic in medical contexts. In addition, this volume includes studies that deal with the rise of the witch craze in the late fifteenth century and then also investigate whether the Weberian notion of disenchantment pertaining to the modern world can be maintained. Magic is, oddly but significantly, still around us and exerts its influence. Focusing on magic in the medieval world thus helps us to shed light on human culture at large.