Issue 23 – Reviews

[Screening the Past asked Bill Routt to review this archival DVD set documenting most of the surviving films John Ford directed at (Twentieth-Century) Fox from 1920—1952. More of the review will…

Jill Julius Matthews, Dance Hall and Picture Palace: Sydneys Romance with Modernity. Sydney: Currency Press, 2005. ISBN: 0 868 19755 6 Au$32.95 (pb) 342pp (Review copy supplied by Currency Press)…

Philip Brophy, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Australian Screen Classics Series). Sydney: Currency Press and the Australian Film Commission, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-86819-821-7 Au$16.94 (pb) 88pp (Review copy supplied…

Jay McRoy, Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema. Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2008 ISBN: 978 90 420 2331 4 US$67 (pb) 219pp (Review copy supplied by Rodopi)…

Atara Stein, The Byronic Hero in Film, Fiction, and Television. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004 ISBN-13: 978-0809325863 US$45.00 (hb) 272pp (Review copy supplied by Southern Illinois University Press) Narratives…

Guy Westwell, War Cinema. Hollywood on the Front Line. London: Wallflower Press, 2006. ISBN: 978-1-904764-54-0 £12.99stg (pb) 144pp (Review copy supplied by Wallflower Press) Despite the number of war films…

Jonathan Auerbach, Body Shots: Early Cinema’s Incarnations. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-520-25293-6 US$24.95 (pb) 214pp (Review copy supplied by University of California Press) …To achieve any…

Jeffrey Sconce (ed.), Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Politics. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-0-8223-3964-9 US$23.95 (pb) 352pp (Review copy supplied by…

Martin F. Norden (ed.), The Changing Face of Evil in Film and Television. Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, 2007. ISBN: 978 90 420 2324 6 US$77.00 (pb) 244pp (Review copy supplied…

Robin Blaetz (ed), Women’s Experimental Cinema. Critical Frameworks. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2007. ISBN13: 978 0 8223 4044 7 US$25.95 (pb) 412pp (Review Copy supplied by Duke University…

Garrett Stewart, Framed Time: Toward a Postfilmic Cinema. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-77416-9 US$40.00 (pb) 299 pp (Review copy supplied by The University of…

Emiel Martens, Once Were Warriors: The Aftermath. The Controvery of OWW in Aotearoa New Zealand. Amsterdam: Aksant, 2007. ISBN: 978-90-5260-236-3. €24.90 (pb) 184pp (Review copy supplied by Aksant Publishers) How…

Eyal Peretz, Becoming Visionary: Brian De Palma’s Cinematic Education of the Senses. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008. ISBN-13: 9 780 80475685 3 US$21.95 (pb) 224pp (Review copy supplied by Stanford…

Martine Beugnet, Cinema and Sensation: French Film and the Art of Transgression. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007. ISBN: 978 0 7486 2042 5 US$65.00 (hb) 208pp (Review copy supplied by…

Steven Jacobs, The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2007. ISBN: 978 90 6450 637 6 €29.50 (pb) 344pp (Review copy supplied by 010 Publishers) ‘Authoritative’…

András Bálint Kovács, Screening Modernism: European Art Cinema 1950-1980. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-226-45165-7 US$22.50 (pb) 428pp (Review copy supplied by University of Chicago Press) As we…

Mark Browning, David Cronenberg: Author or Film-maker? Bristol and Chicago: Intellect Books, 2007. ISBN: 978-1-84150-173-4 US$25.00 (pb) 207pp (Review copy supplied by Intellect Books) After more than half a century…

Deane Williams, Australian Postwar Documentary Film: An Arc of Mirrors. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2008. ISBN: 9781841502106 UK£29.95 (hb) 192 pp (Review copy supplied by Intellect Books) Deane Williams re-evaluates Australian…

Michelle Langford, Allegorical Images: Tableau, Time and Gesture in the Cinema of Werner Schroeter. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2006. ISBN 1-84150-138-7 US$40.00 (pb) 215pp (Review copy supplied by UniReps) Werner Schroeter…

Sam Rohdie, Montage (Cinema Aesthetics). Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006. ISBN-13: 978-0719070396 US$19.95 (pb) 146pp (Review copy supplied by Manchester University Press) This book treats of montage much as Eisenstein described…

Tim Bergfelder, Sue Harris and Sarah Street, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema. Amsterdam University Press, 1970 ISBN: 978 90 5356 984 9 US$39.50…

John David Rhodes, Stupendous, Miserable City: Pasolini’s Rome. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4930-3 US$20.00 (pb) 240pp (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) Pasolini was born…

Tom Conley, Film Hieroglyphs: Ruptures in Classical Cinema (new introduction). University of Minnesota Press, 1991; 2006. ISBN 0-8166-4970-7 US$22.50 (pb) 296pp Tom Conley, Cartographic Cinema. University of Minnesota Press, 2007. ISBN…

Alan Taylor, Jacobean Visions: Webster, Hitchcock, and Google Culture. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-3-631-56227-7 US$41.95 (pb) 201pp (Review copy supplied by Peter Lang) Read from a film-critical…

Robin Nelson, State of Play: Contemporary “High-End” TV Drama. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN: 978-0-7190-7311-3 US$24.95 (pb) 272pp (Review copy supplied by Manchester University Press) Even with the continued growth…

Jon Lewis and Eric Smoodin (eds), Looking Past the Screen: Case Studies in American Film History and Method. Duke University Press, 2007 ISBN-13: 978-0-8223-3821-5 US$24.95 (pb) 400pp (Review copy supplied…

Leen Engelen and Roel Vande Winkel, Perspectives on European Film and History. Academia Press, Gent, 2007 ISBN: 97 890 3821082 7 Eur 30.00 (pb) 281pp (Review copy supplied by Gent,…

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, Film and Dreams: Tarkovsky, Bergman, Sokurov, Kubrick and Wong Kar-wai. New York: Lexington, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-0739121870 US$65.00 (hb) 161pp (Review copy supplied by Lexington publications) Thorsten Botz-Bornstein is…

Giorgio Agamben, Profanations (Translated by Jeff Fort). New York: Zone Books, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-1-890951-82-5 US$25.95 (hb) 100pp (Review copy supplied by MIT Press) Philosophy adopts the task, usually as the task par…

Geoff King, Donnie Darko (Cultographies Series). London & New York: Wallflower Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-1-905674-51-0 US$15.00 (pb) 118pp (Review copy supplied by Wallflower Press) It may be no stretch of the…

Roger Beebe and Jason Middleton (eds.), Medium Cool: Music Videos from Soundies to Cellphones. Durham, Duke University Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-8223-4162-8 US$23.95 (pb) 360pp (Review copy supplied by Duke University…

D. N. Rodowick, The Virtual Life of Film. Cambridge, Harvard UP, 2007. ISBN 13:978-0-674-02698-8 US$24.95 (pb) 193pp (Review copy supplied by Harvard University Press) Because the digital arts are without…

Ranjani Mazumdar, Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-8166-4942-6 US$22.50 (pb) 257 pages (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) The…

Zhang Zhen (ed.), The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-8223-4074-4 US$26.95 (pb) 447pp (Review…

Christine Cornea, Science Fiction Cinema: Between Fantasy and Reality. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007 ISBN: 978-0-7486-1642-8 Au$49.95 (pb) 308pp (Review copy supplied by Edinburgh University Press) In the foreword to…

Steve Chibnall, Quota Quickies: The Birth of the British ‘B’ Film. London: BFI, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-1844571550 US$28.95 (pb) 329pp (Review copy supplied by BFI Publishing) Steve Chibnall is a well-known…

Millicent Marcus, Italian Film in the Shadow of Auschwitz. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-8020-9189-5 US$29.95 (pb with dvd) 224pp (Review copy supplied by University of Toronto Press)…

Steven Ricci, Cinema and Fascism: Italian Film and Society, 1922-1943. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. ISBN: 0 520 23310 7 US$24.95 (pb) 233pp (Review copy supplied by University of…

Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Gothic. London; New York: Routledge, 2007. ISBN: 978 0 415 39843 5 $US30.95 (pb) 290pp (Review copy supplied by Routledge)…

Abé Mark Nornes [Markus Nornes], Cinema Babel: Translating Global Cinema. Minneapolis and London, University of Minnesota Press: 2007. ISBN: 978-0-8166-5042-2 US$22.50 (pb) 304pp (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota…

Vanessa Schwartz, It’s So French! Hollywood, Paris, and the Making of Cosmopolitan Film Culture. The University of Chicago Press, 2007 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-74243-4 US$25.00 (pb) 272 pp (Review copy supplied by…

Cindy Patton, Cinematic Identity: Anatomy of a Problem Film. University of Minnesota Press, 2007. ISBN: 0-8166-3412-2 US$19.50 (pb) 232pp (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) From the title,…

Scott Anthony, Night Mail. London: British Film Institute, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-1-84457-229-8 £9.99 stg (pb) (Review copy supplied by British Film Institute) Night Mail, the GPO Film Unit’s 1936 paean to…

Barbara Creed, Phallic Panic. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2005. ISBN:0 52285 172 X Au$34.95 (pb) 200pp (Review copy supplied by Melbourne University Press) In his essay on the uncanny, Freud…

Jeffrey Weinstock, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Cultographies). London: Wallflower Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-1-905674-50-3 US$15.00 (pb) 144pp (Review copy supplied by Wallflower Press) Some might say that a film like The Rocky…

Jonathan Rayner, The Naval War Film: Genre, History, National Cinema. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-0-7190-7098-3 US$84.95 (hb) 275pp (Review copy supplied by Manchester University Press) A great deal…

Takayuki Tatsumi, Full Metal Apache: Transactions Between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America. Duke University Press, 2006. ISBN-13: 978-0-8223-3774-4 US$22.95 (pb) 272pp (Review copy supplied by Duke University Press) Full Metal…

Paul Grainge, Brand Hollywood: Selling Entertainment in a Global Media Age. London & New York: Routledge, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-415-35405-9 US$34.95 (pb) 224pp (Review copy supplied by Routledge) The brand is…

Christopher Bolton, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr, and Takayuki Tatsumi (eds.), Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime. Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. ISBN:…

Dorota Ostrowska, Reading the French New Wave: Critics, Writers and Art Cinema in France. London: Wallflower, 2008. ISBN: 978-1-905674-57-2 £16.99 (pb) 207pp (Review copy supplied by Wallflower Press) The links…