Category Archive for: ‘Issue 16 – Reviews’

Peter William Evans & Celestino Deleyto, eds. Terms of Endearment: Hollywood Romantic Comedy of the 1980s and 1990s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998. ISBN: 0 7486 0885 0 220 pp £11.00 (Review copy supplied by Marston Book Services). “But romantic comedy refuses to be exclusively sustained by reality principles – however much it is regulated by them – and for all …

Terrie Waddell (ed.) , Cultural Expressions of Evil and Wickedness: Wrath, Sex, Crime. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2003. ISBN: 9 042 01015 0 226pp US$50.00 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Rodopi publishers) Starting with the tabloid maxim that “if it bleeds it leads” (p.ix), this book sets out to explore the representation of evil in popular culture and Western history. Composed …

Eric Cazdyn, The Flash of Capital: Film and Geopolitics in Japan. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002. ISBN 0 8223 2929 5 316 pp US$21.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Duke University Press) As its title suggests, Eric Cazdyn’s new book brings together global economics and aesthetics to write a new history of Japanese film. The result is a stimulating and …

Joseph Cunneen, Robert Bresson: A Spiritual Style in Film. New York & London: Continuum, 2003. ISBN: 0826416055 (pb) US$17.95 ISBN: 0826414710 (hb) US$29.95 224pp (Review copy supplied by Continuum) The professed aim of this book is to introduce to a wider public, particularly a wider American public, a French filmmaker who has been widely honoured but whose films have been …

Darren Tofts, Annemarie Jonson and Alessio Cavallaro (eds), Prefiguring Cyberspace: An Intellectual History. Power Institute, Sydney / MIT Press, Cambridge MA. 2002. ISBN 1 86487 491 0 322 pages Au$49.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Power Institute) Reviewing anthologies is tough. No only do you have to at least mention every one of the eighteen essays and ten artist’s statements, …

Eric Smoodin & Ann Martin (eds.), Hollywood Quarterly: Film Culture in Postwar America 1945-1957. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. ISBN 0 520 23274 7 417pp US$24.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by University of California Press) Eric Smoodin and Ann Martin’s Hollywood Quarterly provides an informative sample of writing published by this important film/communications journal in one of the defining – perhaps …

Activating the Reader Graeme Turner (ed), The Film Cultures Reader. London & New York: Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0 415 25281 4 448pp Au$50.00 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Routledge) In the Jonathan Franzen novel, The Corrections (2001), Chip, a former academic and struggling scriptwriter, faced with the question of how to pay the rent as well as keeping up appearances, gradually ‘”deaccessions” …

David C. Gillespie, Russian Cinema. Inside Film Series. Harlow, Eng., London: Longman, Pearson Education, 2003. ISBN: 0 582 43790 3 201pp US$11.95 (pb) Russian cinema, though represented often by the bipartite division of Soviet and post-Soviet films, reveals figures and a world view bound to the motherland (the landscape), ingrained in ideology, inspired and penetrated by art, literature, and theatre, …

Alexandra Juhasz (ed.), Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video. Visible Evidence, vol. 9. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. ISBN: 0 8166 3372 X 343pp US$22.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) Women of Vision consists of the author’s introduction and afterword and twenty interviews with women involved in the filmmaking, production, distribution, …

Lisa French (editor), Womenvision: Women and the Moving Image in Australia. Melbourne: Damned Publishing, 2003. ISBN: 1 876310 01 4 336pp Au$29.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Damned Publishing) Womenvision  makes an important contribution to writing on Australian cinema, one that continues the tradition of the landmark collection Don’t Shoot Darling! Women’s Independent Filmmaking in Australia  (Greenhouse Publications, 1987) edited by Annette Blonski, …

Kenneth Turan, Sundance to Sarajevo: Films Festivals and the World they Made. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. ISBN: 0 520 21867 1 192pp US$35.00 (hb) (Review copy supplied by University of California Press) At this year’s Melbourne international film festival, I brought along a film critic from the Los Angeles Times for company. Between screenings, I had Kenneth Turan regale me …

Lutz Koepnick, The Dark Mirror. German Cinema between Hitler and Hollywood. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2002. ISBN 0 520 23310 7 334 pp US $ 24.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by University of California Press) The subtitle of Lutz Koepnick’s book may be taken literally, the subject of this ambitious and ground-breaking work being German cinema in the Third …

Jane Roscoe and Craig Hight, Faking It: Mock-documentary and the Subversion of Factuality. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2001. ISBN: 0 7190 5641 1 Au$43.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Footprint Books) Although I have always been a big fan of This is Spinal Tap (USA, 1984) The Falls (Britain, 1980), and such television series as The Games (Australia, 1998) and People Like Us (Britain, 1999), I have …

Leon Hunt, Kung Fu Cult Masters: From Bruce Lee to Crouching Tiger. London: Wallflower, 2003. ISBN: 1 903364 63 9 229 pp £15.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Wallflower Press) Like some of the performers he writes about, Leon Hunt performs a difficult stunt with Kung Fu Cult Masters. He walks the fine line between fandom and academic criticism, trying not …

Alan McKee, Australian Television: A Genealogy of Great Moments. Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2001. ISBN: 0 195512251 362 pp Au$49.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Oxford University Press) In both the title and the text (“This book is a genealogy”, 13) the author proposes that he is writing a “genealogy”, which my dictionary defines as a “pedigree” or a …

Kelly Hankin, The Girls in the Back Room: Looking at the Lesbian Bar. University of Minnesota Press, 2002. ISBN: 0 8166 3298 0; US$56.95 (hb) ISBN 0 8166 3929 9: $18.95 (pb) 248 pp (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) As Kelly Hankin reminds us in the introduction to The Girls in the Back Room, the lesbian bar has …

Peter Stanfield, Hollywood, Westerns and the 1930s: The Lost Trail. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2001. ISBN: 0 85989 694 3 (pb) £18.99 ISBN: 0 85989 693 5 (hb) £47.50 272pp (Review copy supplied by University of Exeter Press) John Wayne, after nearly a decade of low budget westerns, finally emerged from Poverty row films with the release of John Ford’s Stagecoach in February …

Ben Singer, Melodrama and Modernity. Early Sensational Cinema and its Contexts. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001 ISBN: 0 231 113293 256 pp US$24.50 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Columbia University Press) One of the best films released in the past twelve months was Far from Heaven (USA/France, 2002), Todd Haynes’s reworking of Douglas Sirk’s All that Heaven Allows (USA, 1955) – with additional themes, …

Mark Glancy, “The 39 Steps”. A British Film Guide. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002 ISBN : 1 860 64614 X 128pp £12.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by I.B Tauris) The author of this often stimulating monograph is a lecturer in History and Film at Queen Mary, University of London. Indirectly at least, his “guide” owes a debt to Stephen Rebello’s Alfred Hitchcock …

Sam B. Girgus. America on Film: Modernism, Documentary and a Changing America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN: 0521 009316. 226 pp Au$49.95 (Review copy supplied by Cambridge University Press) Film studies is awash with contesting theories regarding the definition, characteristics, purpose, ethics, ideology and comprehension of the range of films that we sometimes problematically categorise as documentaries. Sam Girgus’ …

Where are the Borders? William Van Der Heide. Malaysian cinema, Asian film: border crossings and national cultures. Amsterdam University Press. 2002. ISBN: 9 05356519 1 336pp US$32.00 (pb) The dearth of publications on Malaysian cinema makes William Van Der Heide’s comprehensive study of Malaysian film culture valuable. Malaysian cnema, Asian film: border crossings and national cultures, is the first book published …

Michel Marie, The French New Wave: An Artistic School. New York & Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. ISBN: 0 631 22658 3 172 pp US $21.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Blackwell Publishing) It is one of the ironies of book publication in the area of cinema studies that so much seems to be produced each year – with no signs …

Indian Film Books Gayatri Chatterjee, Mother India. London: BFI Publishing. 2002. ISBN: 0 85170 917 6, 96pp, £8.99 (pb) Rachel Dwyer, Yash Chopra. London: BFI Publishing. 2002. ISBN: 0 85170 875 7, 202 pp, £13.99 (pb) (Review copies supplied by the British Film Institute) The publication of both of these books coincided with the “Imagine Asia: a celebration of South Asian film” event, held …

The Cinema of the Other Europe. Re-opening the question. Dina Iordanova, Cinema of the Other Europe: The Industry and Artistry of East Central European Film London & New York: Wallflower Press, 2003. ISBN: 1 903364 61 2 224pp UK£14.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Wallflower Press) In 1992, soon after the Eastern European “velvet revolutions”, Catherine Portuges noted that “to …

Peter Lehman and William Luhr, Thinking About Movies: Watching, Questioning, Enjoying. (Second Edition). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. ISBN: 0 631 23358 X 397pp US$49.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Blackwell Publishing) A large introductory textbook can be a static piece of work and off-putting for the student who may have thought that taking a cinema course would be an enjoyable, and …

Kay Armatage, The Girl from God’s country: Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. ISBN: 0 802085423. 428pp £20 (hb) (Review copy supplied by University of Toronto Press) Kay Armatage’s study of Nell Shipman – screenwriter, star, producer and director – was written with the declared feminist intention of restoring to view a woman who …

Karen Beckman, Vanishing Women: Magic, Film and Feminism. Duke University Press. 2003. ISBN 0 8223 3074 1 256pp US (Review copy supplied by Duke University Press) With the aid of trapdoors, mirrors, elevators, photographs and film, female vanishing acts occupy a prolific and highly political position within the genesis of Western visual culture. In Vanishing Women: Magic, Film and Feminism Karen …

Brian McFarlane (ed), The Encylopedia of British Film. London: Methuen, in association with BFI, 2003 ISBN: 0413773019 800pp £24.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Methuen) A few months ago, I attended a symposium on British film history. During an ice-breaking session, a well known academic was asked to cite his most consulted film book. He nominated Duncan Petrie’s The British Cinematographer, on …

Jonathan Rosenbaum & Adrian Martin (eds.), Movie Mutations: The Changing Face of World Cinephilia. London: BFI Publishing. 2003. ISBN: 0851709842 (pb): £15.99 ISBN: 0851709834 (hb) £48.00 224 pp (Review copy supplied by BFI publishing) Two declarations stand out right at the start. “The Cinemas of Asia and the Middle East have, over the past decade, assumed a prominence in world …

Ni Zhen (translated by Chris Berry), Memoirs from the Beijing Film Academy: The Genesis of China’s Fifth Generation. Durham & London: Duke University, 2002. ISBN: 0 822 32970 0 240pp US$18.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Duke University) Ni Zhen’s original Chinese version of Memoirs from the Beijing Film Academy is a classic work of late twentieth century Chinese cinema studies. Professor …

Beumers, Birgit (ed.), Russia on Reels: The Russian Idea in Post-Soviet Cinema. Kino: The Russian cinema series. London and New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 1999. ISBN: 1 86064 390 6 219pp £14.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by I.B. Tauris Publishers) It will be quite normal, perhaps even remarkable, if, with time, Russian cinema can take the same place that cinema …

Louis Nowra, Walkabout. NSW: Currency Press, 2003 ISBN 0 86819 700 9 Au $14.95 (pb) (review copy supplied by Currency Press) Louis Nowra’s Walkabout is a succinct, very good, useful close reading of Nicolas Roeg’s 1971 film even though it may not achieve its ultimate aim. Nowra, a versatile author of plays, novels and screenplays, writes about the film clearly, without academic …

“Continuities of consciousness” Grahame Smith, Dickens and the Dream of Cinema. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2003. ISBN: 0 7190 5563 6 240pp UK£14.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Manchester University Press) ‘The aim of this book is to tell a story about Dickens’s role in the emergence of film, a narrative of consciousness across different media and across …

Christopher Beach, Class, Language and American Film Comedy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0 521 00209 5 241pp. £16.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Cambridge University Press) Any book entitled Class, Language and American Film Comedy risks tempting fate. Inevitably, the task of surveying such an infinite field is impossible without drawing some rigorous parameters. Here, author Christopher Beach stakes out …

A smorgasboard for actors Adam Macauley, Don’t Tell Me, Show Me: Directors Talk about Acting. NSW: Currency Press, 2003 ISBN 0 86819 669 X 211 pp Au$29.95 (Review copy supplied by Currency Press) In Don’t Tell Me, Show Me, Adam Macauley asks twelve Australian film, television, theatre, and opera directors the same question: When you work with actors you consider good, what …

Bernadette Kester, Film Front Weimar: Representations of the First World War in German Films of the Weimar period (1919 – 1933). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004 ISBN 90 5356 597 3 329pp US$27.50 (pr) (Review copy supplied by Amsterdam University Press) Films dealing with the First World War, with a few notable exceptions like the British documentary The Battle of the …

John E. Bodnar, Blue Collar Hollywood: Liberalism, Democracy and Working People in American Film. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2003. ISBN: 0 801 87149 2 320pp US$42.95 (hb) (Review copy supplied by Johns Hopkins University Press) John Bodnar’s recently published work, Blue Collar Hollywood: Liberalism, Democracy and Working People in American Film, may be satisfactorily classified as a social history as …

Sam Rohdie, Fellini Lexicon. London: BFI publishers, 2002. ISBN: 0851709346 £13.99 (pb) ISBN: 0851709338 £48.00 (hb) 159pp (Review copy supplied by BFI publishing) A note on the back cover of this handsome volume is indicative: “The Lexicon accompanies Fellini’s films, rather than seeking to possess them, taking pleasure in their incongruities, exaggerations, absurdities and surprises. The entries are reversible, overlapping, often unlikely, …