Category Archive for: ‘Issue 12 – Reviews’

Robert Burgoyne, Film Nation: Hollywood Looks at U.S History. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. 1997. ISBN 0 81662071 7(pb) 137pp US$14.95 (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) Uploaded 1 March 2001 In this stimulating, if tantalisingly short book, Burgoyne explores the changing film narratives which, he contends, constitute genuine assaults on the “dominant fictions” that define the American …

John Belton (ed.), Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-521-56453-0. 177 pp. A$29.95 (pb) Lloyd Michaels (ed.), Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000 ISBN 0-521-65698-2. 191 pp A$29.95 (pb) Nick Browne (ed.), Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather Trilogy. Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-521-55950-2. 191 pp A$29.95 (pb) (Review copies supplied by Cambridge University Press) Uploaded 1 March …

Lucy Mazdon, Encore Hollywood: Remaking French Cinema. London:BFI Publishing. 2000. ISBN 0 85170 801 3 240pp A$52.95 (Review copy supplied by Peribo: Distributors of Fine Books) Uploaded 1 March 2001 This book arises out of the recent proliferation of American re-makes of successful French films. It proposes to contest the notion that such re-makes inevitably signal the degradation of an …

Kent Jones, L’argent BFI Publishing, 1999. ISBN 0 85170 733 5 96pp A$24.95 (Review copy supplied by Peribo: Distributors of Fine Books) Uploaded 1 March 2001 “The fact that Bresson’s long life had more or less begun and ended with ‘the century of cinema’ seemed right, as natural as the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon. …

From ‘Social Practice’ to Post-Independence: Remembering the Worlds of Independent Film Margaret Dickinson, Rogue Reels: Oppositional Film in Britain, 1945-90. London: British Film Institute, 1999. ISBN 0851707270 (pb) 288pp £15.99 (Review copy supplied by British Film Institute) Uploaded 1 March 2001 The independent or oppositional film movement in Britain has made a relatively minor appearance in the world of academic …

Pauline B. Rogers, The Art of Visual Effects: Interviews on the Tools of the Trade. London: Focal Press, 1999. ISBN 0 240 80375 2 (pb) 360pp A$ 70.98 (Review copy supplied by Butterworth Heinemann) Uploaded 1 March 2001 My job now is a continuum of analysis, judgement, creativity, questioning, searching for excellence and taking chances.(Mark Stetson, 269) Mark Stetson’s contribution to …

The Spoor of the Woozle Richard Abel, The Red Rooster Scare: Making Cinema American, 1900-1910. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1999. ISBN 0-520-21478-1 (pb) 301pp US$24.95 (Review copy supplied by University of California Press) Uploaded 1 March 2001 All of Richard Abel’s six books begin with epigraphs from Winnie-the-Pooh (not The House at Pooh Corner). A sizeable chunk of Pooh-Piglet dialogue about hunting …

Diane Waldman and Janet Walker (eds.), Feminism and Documentary. Visible Evidence; v.5. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. ISBN 0 8166 3007 0 (pb). 365pp US$19.95 (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) Uploaded 1 March 2001 Feminism and Documentary is a valuable work that enhances discussion on both feminist documentaries and the history of women in documentary; …

R.L.Rutsky, High Technê: Art and Technology from the Machine Aesthetic to the Posthuman. Minnneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. ISBN 0 8166 3356 8 (pb) 192pp US$17.95 (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) Uploaded 1 March 2001 How is one to situate this book? Does it look forward or back? Is it of this century or the last? …

Michael Putnam, Silent Screens: The Decline and Transformation of the American Movie Theatre Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. ISBN 0 8018 6329 5(hb) 202pp 122 pp US$39.95 (Review copy supplied by Johns Hopkins University Press) Uploaded 1 March 2001 This is primarily a book of photographs – works of art, but as record rather than nostalgia. Michael …

Annette Kuhn & Jackie Stacey (eds), Screen Histories: A Screen Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 019815 9498 233 pp A$59.95 (Review copy supplied by Oxford University Press) Uploaded 1 March 2001 The most interesting thing about this book is the fact that it was published at all, that both a prestigious journal (Screen) and an equally prestigious publishing house (Oxford University …

Lester D. Friedman (ed), Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-521-59697-1 211pp. A$33.95 (Review copy supplied by Cambridge University Press) Uploaded 1 March 2001 It is nearly seventy years since the notorious Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed on the roadside in Louisiana, their bodies pulverized by a barrage of more than eighty bullets. It …

David Sutton, A Chorus of Raspberries: British Film Comedy 1929-1939. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000. ISBN 085989 603 X 294 pp £40.00 (Review copy supplied by University of Exeter Press) Uploaded 1 March 2001 David Sutton takes the title of his book from George Orwell’s essay “The art of Donald McGill”, an analysis of British saucy seaside postcards published …