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Winner of the 2008 Gradiva Award, Theoretical Category, presented by the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis The Real Gaze develops a new theory of the cinema by rethinking the concept of the gaze, which has long been central in film theory. Historically film scholars have located the gaze on the side of the spectator; however, Todd McGowan positions it within the filmic image, where it has the radical potential to disrupt the spectator's sense of identity and challenge the foundations of ideology. This book demonstrates several distinct cinematic forms that vary in terms of how the gaze functions within the films. Through a detailed investigation of directors such as Orson Welles, Claire Denis, Stanley Kubrick, Spike Lee, Federico Fellini, Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Andrei Tarkovsky, Wim Wenders, and David Lynch, McGowan explores the political, cultural, and existential ramifications of these differing roles of the gaze.
Stanley Kubrick had a great talent for creating memorable images--such as his famous jump cut from a bone tossed into the prehistoric sky to a spaceship orbiting the earth in 2001. Like the composer of a great symphony, Kubrick also had the ability to draw his memorable moments into a lyrical whole. Balancing harmony with discord, he kept viewers on edge by constantly shifting relationships among the dramatic elements in his movies. The results often confounded expectations and provoked controversy, right up through Eyes Wide Shut, the last film of his life. This book is an intensive, scene-by-scene analysis of Kubrick's most mature work--seven meticulously wrought films, from Dr. Strangelove to Eyes Wide Shut. In these films, Kubrick dramatized the complexity and mutability of the human struggle, in settings so diverse that some critics have failed to see the common threads. Rasmussen traces those threads and reveals the always shifting, always memorable, always passionately rendered pattern. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Mixing memoir and cultural criticism, Memory's Orbit examines the intersections between a wide range of films and current events, finding its theme and orbiting narrative structure in the personal stories we live within and their relationship to the social and cultural order. Joseph Natoli covers such films as The Matrix, American Beauty, Fight Club, Eyes Wide Shut, and American History X, as well as such headline events as the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., the dot-com boom, the WTO protests in Seattle, and Bush versus Gore, consistently identifying those aspects of the social order that have shaped his narrating frame. Eschewing theoretical exposition and jargon, Natoli performs postmodern critique, and this book continues his innovative work in the genre of cultural studies.
Twenty years after its release, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut remains a complex, visually arresting film about marriage, jealousy, domesticity, adultery, sexual disturbance, and dreams. This was the final enigmatic work from its equally enigmatic creator. It has left an indelible mark on our popular culture and remains as relevant as ever. Much maligned and much misunderstood when it first came out, Eyes Wide Shut has since been the subject of an animated debate and discussion among critics, fans and academics. It has been explored from a wide variety of disciplines and methodological perspectives. This collection brings scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds together with those who worked on the film to explore Eyes Wide Shut’s legacy, discuss its impact, and consider its position within Kubrick’s oeuvre and the wider visual and socio-political culture.
The beginning of the 21st century was a time of unprecedented events in American society: Y2K, 9/11 and the wars that followed, partisan changes in government and the rapid advancements of the Internet and mass consumerism. In the two decades since, popular culture--particularly film--has manifested the underlying anxieties of the American psyche. This collection of new essays examines dozens of movies released 1998-2020 and how they drew upon and spoke to mass cultural fears. Contributors analyze examples across a range of genres--horror, teen rom-coms, military flicks, slow-burns, and animated children's films--covering topics including gender and sexuality, environmental politics, technophobia, xenophobia, and class and racial inequality.
Twenty years since its release, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut remains a complex, visually arresting film about domesticity, sexual disturbance, and dreams. It was on the director's mind for some 50 years before he finally put it into production. Using the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts, London, and interviews with participants in the production, the authors create an archeology of the film that traces the progress of the film from its origins to its completion, reception, and afterlife. The book is also an appreciation of this enigmatic work and its equally enigmatic creator.
Whereas nineteenth-century university jubilees traditionally led to the writing of histories that celebrated an individual university, in this volume they have inspired instead a stimulating comparative approach that studies jubilees themselves across Northern Europe. Starting from the bicentenary of Helsinki University in 1840 and finishing with the opening of the University of Iceland in 1911, this book focuses on the importance of these jubilees for the development of Scandinavist ideas and increasing cultural and scientific cooperation between the Nordic countries. Can these jubilees be regarded as the driving force of increasing Nordic cooperation? The analysis here shows that university and political authorities have always sought the right balance between the national, regional (in casu Nordic) and international character of their celebration.
Philip Ziegler, born in Bern, Switzerland, came to the U.S. in 1746 and settled in Tulpehocken Township in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Regina Requel, his wife was a native of Wurttemberg, Germany. His descendants lived in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, and other places in the U.S.
Jewish film characters have existed almost as long as the medium itself. But around 1990, films about Jews and their representation in cinema multiplied and took on new forms, marking a significant departure from the past. With a fresh generation of Jewish filmmakers, writers, and actors at work, contemporary cinemas have been depicting a multiplicity of new variants, including tough Jews; brutish Jews; gay and lesbian Jews; Jewish cowboys, skinheads, and superheroes; and even Jews in space. The New Jew in Film is grounded in the study of over three hundred films from Hollywood and beyond. Nathan Abrams explores these new and changing depictions of Jews, Jewishness, and Judaism, providing a ...
What do contemporary American movies and directors have to say about the relationship between nature and art? How do science fiction films like Steven Spielberg's A.I. and Darren Aronofsky's π represent the apparent oppositions between nature and culture, wild and tame? Steven Dillon's intriguing new volume surveys American cinema from 1990 to 2002 with substantial descriptions of sixty films, emphasizing small-budget independent American film. Directors studied include Steven Soderbergh, Darren Aronofsky, Todd Haynes, Harmony Korine, and Gus Van Sant, as well as more canonical figures like Martin Scorcese, Robert Altman, David Lynch, and Steven Spielberg. The book takes its title and inspi...