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A film archetype as old as film itself, the man-child has been an enduring comedy subject. Classics as diverse as Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) and The Apartment (1960) have used the immature male to drive plots and press the importance of growing up. But he was not born fully formed--it took the shifting social norms of decades to mold the atrocious behavior of the puerile buffoon we know today. The man-child has come under scrutiny in recent years. Prominent writers, including David Denby and A.O. Scott, have criticized the modern comedian behaving in shamelessly childish ways. This book provides a comprehensive examination of the character of the man-child, from Andre Deed, who debuted on screen in 1901, to Seth Rogen. The author discusses changing cultural attitudes about maturity, what it means to be an adult, what it means to be a child and how those things are becoming increasingly confused.
Originally published in hardcover in 2012.
Cy Endfield (1914-1995) was a filmmaker (Try and Get Me!, Hell Drivers, Zulu) with interests in close-up magic, science, and invention. The director of several distinctive Hollywood movies, he was blacklisted and refused to "name names" before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
This collection of essays explores the social and cultural aspects of steampunk, examining the various manifestations of this multi-faceted genre, in order to better understand the steampunk sub-culture and its effect on--and interrelationship with--popular culture and the wider society.
Jules Verne—Voila!—a name that resonates with visions of fantastic adventures and images of exotic exploits. In his voyages extraordinaires, the noted French author fuses his encyclopedic knowledge of science and geography with his ability to tell fascinating tales, taking his readers on unprecedented journeys across the globe, into the earth, and out into space. This revered writer, who with his boundless imagination had hoped to contribute substantially to the world of letters, has surpassed that expectation to become coincidentally a significant influence on film. Jules Verne on Film is both a penetrating analytical overview of Verne’s epic novels and a comprehensive filmography of ...
The horror genre harbors a number of films too bold or bizarre to succeed with mainstream audiences, but offering unique, startling and often groundbreaking qualities that have won them an enduring following. Beginning with Victor Sjostrom's The Phantom Carriage in 1921, this book tracks the evolution and influence of underground cult horror over the ensuing decades, closing with William Winckler's Frankenstein vs. the Creature from Blood Cove in 2005. It discusses the features that define a cult film, trends and recurring symbols, and changing iconography within the genre through insightful analysis of 88 movies. Included are works by popular directors who got their start with cult horror films, including Oliver Stone, David Cronenberg and Peter Jackson.
A Critical Companion to David Lynch builds on the vast debate of one of the most discussed and researched directors of the present era, with commercial and critical success across multiple mediums and genres. This edited volume provides a wide-ranging exploration of Lynch’s films, practices, and collaborations, with nineteen original chapters examining themes including narrativity, aesthetics, artistry, sound, experimentation, metafiction, and patriarchy from the disciplinary perspectives of film studies, art studies, gender studies, literary studies, and philosophy. Lynch’s entire thought-provoking oeuvre, spanning over fifty years, will be examined, including his shorts and films, animations, TV series, paintings, and commercials.
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The Future Revisited examines Hollywood adaptations of Jules Verne stories and is an interdisciplinary study that offers a fresh perspective on film history, French literature, science fiction and America in the 1950s. It is a fascinating and authoritative account of how the stories of Jules Verne, a distinguished French novelist better known around the world as the father of science fiction and an accurate predictor of much of the twentieth century, found particular resonance with US filmmakers in the 1950s. Schiltz looks at four of the most popular films - Around the World in 80 Days, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Mysterious Island - and argues that t...
The shower scene in Psycho; Cary Grant running for his life through a cornfield; “innocent” birds lined up on a fence waiting, watching — these seminal cinematic moments are as real to moviegoers as their own lives. But what makes them so? What deeper forces are at work in Hitchcock’s films that so captivate his fans? This collection of articles in the series that’s explored such pop-culture phenomena as Seinfeld and The Simpsons examines those forces with fresh eyes. These essays demonstrate a fascinating range of topics: Sabotage’s lessons about the morality of terrorism and counter-terrorism; Rope’s debatable Nietzschean underpinnings; Strangers on a Train’s definition of morality. Some of the essays look at more overarching questions, such as why Hitchcock relies so heavily on the Freudian unconscious. In all, the book features 18 philosophers paying a special homage to the legendary auteur in a way that’s accessible even to casual fans.