Category Archive for: ‘Issue 25 – Reviews’

Note: this is the third tranche of a multi-tranche review. It deals with some of the films made by John Ford at the Fox Studios in the first half of the 1930s. One context for these films is provided in the Brief(er) Introduction to Part Two (a), which deals with the first two of Ford’s sound features included in the Ford At …

A Whole Account of a Great Soul Lorraine Mortimer, Terror and Joy. The Films of Dusan Makavejev. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009 ISBN: 978-0-8166-4887-0 US$25.00 (pb) 336pp (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) It is not a small appreciation to say about a book that it fortunately managed to bring the character of its versatile ”hero”, the …

Michael Deeley and Matthew Field, Blade Runner, Deer Hunters & Blowing The Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies. London: Faber & Faber, 2008 ISBN: 978-0-571-23919-1 Au$49.95 (hb) 304pp (Review copy supplied by Faber & Faber) After a period of neglect, recent years have seen the publication of a number of books dedicated to British cinema of the 1970s. …

Peter Gidal, Andy Warhol’s Blow Job. London: Afterall Books, 2008. ISBN: 1-846380-41-3 US$16.00 (pb) 112pp (Review copy supplied by MIT Press) During its most influential “Silver” period, Andy Warhol’s factory churned out a torrent of paintings, sculptures, and films – films that pretty much reinvented the cinema from the ground up. In this short book, filmmaker and critic Peter Gidal …

Catherine Lumby, Alvin Purple. Australian Screen Classics series Currency Press/AFC/NFSA, 2008 ISBN: 978-0-86819-844-6 Au$16.95 (pb) 80pp Henry Reynolds, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. Australian Screen Classics series Currency Press/AFC/NFSA, 2008 ISBN: 978-0-86819-824-8 Au$16.95 80pp (Review copies supplied by Currency Press) I vividly remember being told many years ago, by people who should know, that it was a waste of time researching …

Brian McFarlane, Screen Adaptations: Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations: The Relationship Between Text and Film. London: Methuen Publishing Ltd. 2008 ISBN: 978-0713679093 US$19.95 (pb) 224pp The cover of this book features a near naked man and woman kissing passionately in the rain. If this rather startling modern depiction of Pip and Estella in Great Expectations (USA 1998) seems incongruous, it’s partly because the …

Lee Grieveson and Haidee Wasson (eds), Inventing Film Studies. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2008 ISBN: 978 0 8223 4289-2 US$27.95 (pb) 446pp (Review Copy supplied by Duke University Press) In 1969, when I was a freshman in college, I could not have told you who John Ford or G.W. Pabst were, although I did experience my first taste …

Esther Romeyn, Street Scenes: Staging the Self in Immigrant New York 1880-1924. University of Minnesota Press, 2008. ISBN: 978-081664522 0 US$25.00 (pb) 320pp (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) We seem to have acquired a class of individuals whose so-called sense of humor takes the form of uncouth flippancy, a type of mind that stares blankly in the …

Nurith Gertz and George Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema: Landscape, Trauma and Memory. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN: 9 780 74863408 8 UK£16.99 (pb) 256pp (Review copy supplied by Edinburgh University Press) Holy Land Trust; Taayush; International Solidarity Movement; Neve shalom/Wahat al-salam (Oasis of Peace) village; and Alternative Information Center are all non-profit peace organizations, grassroots movements, situated in either Israel …

Christopher Wagstaff, Italian Neorealist Cinema: An Aesthetic Approach. University of Toronto Press, 2007. ISBN: 9 7808020 95206 US$39.95 (pb) 514pp (Review copy supplied by University of Toronto Press) Italian neo-realism was many things. At one end of the spectrum it was a wide social and artistic movement emerging from the debris of the Second World War – Fascism, German occupation, …

Irving Singer, Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Reflections on His Creativity. MIT Press, 2007 ISBN-13: 978-0-262-19563-8 US$24.95 (hb) 240pp Irving Singer, Cinematic Mythmaking: Philosophy in Film. MIT Press, 2008 ISBN-13: 978-0-262-19589-8 US$24.95 (hb) 256pp (Review copies supplied by MIT Press) Could it be that “philosopher of film” is a persona on the way to becoming obsolete? This would perhaps be surprising, …

Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti (eds), Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008 ISBN: 978-0-8166-4579-4 US$25.00 (pb) 340pp (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) My local community arts centre now offers Bollywood Dhamarka every Thursday. The South Asian population of the suburb is minimal so who are the participants of this fun-filled hour? …

Wheeler Winston Dixon, Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia. Edinburgh University Press, 2009 ISBN: 978 0 7486 2400 3 £18.99 (pb) 208pp Review copy supplied by Edinburgh University Press. Most film people, I believe, think of film noir as a phenomenon that emerged in the late 1930s, blossomed in the next two decades, then slowly subsided, generating the occasional …

James Walters, Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema: Resonance Between Realms. Chicago: Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 2008 ISBN: 978-1-84150-202-1 US$30.00 (pb) 232pp (Review copy supplied by Unireps) The recognition of fictionalized or fantasy worlds is nothing new to cinema studies. However, in Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema: Resonance Between Realms, University of Birmingham professor James Walters builds upon previous …

Nitzan Ben-Shaul, Film: The Key Concepts. Oxford: Berg, 2007 ISBN-13: 978-1845203665 US$19.95 (pb) 192pp (Review copy supplied by Berg Publishers) Nitzan Ben-Shaul’s Film: The Key Concepts is part of a “Key Concepts” series from Berg that “aims to cover the core disciplines and the key cross-disciplinary ideas across the Humanities and Social Sciences.” Given its purpose, Film: The Key Concepts succeeds admirably. Divided into …