Category Archive for: ‘Issue 31 – Reviews’

Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time, 3: Cinematic Time and the Question of Malaise Stanford University Press, 2010 ISBN: 9 780 804761 680 US$27.95 (pb) 280pp (Review copy supplied by Stanford University Press) Some thirty thousand or so years ago, prehistoric human beings painted and drew on the walls of what is now known as the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, located in the …

Peter Limbrick, Making Settler Cinemas: Film and Colonial Encounters in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan. 2010 ISBN: 978-0-230-10264-4 272 pp AUD$147.95 (hb) (Review copy supplied by Palgrave Macmillan) In his latest book Making Settler Cinemas, Peter Limbrick traverses some essential cinemas of the world, Ford in the USA, Ealing Studios in Australia …

Derek Jarman, Dancing Ledge University of Minnesota Press, 2010 ISBN 978-0-8166-7449-7 256pp  US$18.95 (pb) Derek Jarman, Kicking the Pricks University of Minnesota Press, 2010 ISBN 978-0-8166-7450-3256pp  US$18.95 (pb) (Review copies supplied by University of Minnesota Press) Film-maker, painter, queer activist, AIDS awareness activist, gardener and writer, Derek Jarman has left a great legacy in a variety of artistic and cultural …

Susan L. Carruthers, Cold War Captives: Imprisonment, Escape, and Brainwashing. California: University of California, 2009. ISBN: 9780520257313 US$21.95 (pb) 352pp (Review copy supplied by University of California Press) A professor in the Federated Department of History at Rutgers University, Susan L Carruthers’ research on American and British 20th century history focuses on the relation of media to conflict and war. …

Catherine Simpson, Renata Murawska, Anthony Lambert (eds), Diasporas of Australian cinema Intellect, Bristol, UK/Chicago USA, 2009 ISBN: 1 841 50197 2 US$40 (pb) 128pp (Review copy supplied by Intellect) My first problem with this book was its title. From the title alone, I assumed it would be about the spread of Australian cinema into other cultures (probably a study of …

Tony Shaw and Denise J. Youngblood, Cinematic Cold War: The American and Soviet Struggle for Hearts and Minds University Press of Kansas, 2010 ISBN 978-0-7006-1743-2 US$34.95 (hb) 312pp (Review copy supplied by University Press of Kansas)     Who are the “All Time Winners in an All Time Losers Game”? [1] Tony Shaw and Denise J. Youngblood’s thoroughly researched cultural …

Karen Beckman, Crash: Cinema and the Politics of Speed and Stasis. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010 ISBN: 978-0-8223-4726-2 US$24.95 (pb) 305pp (Review copy supplied by Duke University Press) Since the industrial revolution, technology has completely altered ways of living. In the twenty-first century, a deluge of new technology has continued to crash into our daily lives, altering modes …

Gregory A. Waller, The Living and the Undead University of Illinois Press, 2010 (the first paperback edition of the 1986 hardback version) ISBN: 978-0-252-07772-2 US$25 (pb) 408pp (Review copy supplied by University of Illinois Press) In the Criitque of Pure Reason Kant draws a distinction between negative and indefinite judgment. As Slavoj Zizek has pointed out, the example that Kant …

Ella Shohat, Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation I. B. Tauris, 2010 (Revised Edition) ISBN 13: 9781845113131 US$30 (pb) 416pp (Review copy supplied by I. B. Tauris) When Ella Shohat’s doctoral dissertation was first published as a book in 1989, it stood out as a groundbreaking and insightful analysis of the Israeli cinema. At a time when film …

Suzanne Buchan, The Quay Brothers: Into a Metaphysical Playroom. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8166-4659-3. US$25.00 (pb) 296 pp (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) In The Quay Brothers: Into a Metaphysical Playroom, Suzanne Buchan quotes Polish author Bruno Schulz, who wrote that “poetry happens when short-circuits of sense occur between worlds” (p.66). This is an …