Category Archive for: ‘Issue 45 – Reviews’
Liberating Hollywood. Women Directors & the Feminist Reform of 1970s American Cinema
Maya Montañez Smukler, Liberating Hollywood. Women Directors & the Feminist Reform of 1970s American Cinema New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019 ISBN 9780813587479 US$46.80 (pb) 351pp (Review copy supplied by Rutgers University Press) In October 2019, it was announced in the trade press that Elaine May was, at 86 years old, making her first film in more than three …
Read MoreThe Thought of Stanley Cavell and Cinema: Turning Anew to the Ontology of Film a Half Century after The World Viewed
David LaRocca (ed.), The Thought of Stanley Cavell and Cinema: Turning Anew to the Ontology of Film a Half Century after The World Viewed Bloomsbury Academic, New York, 2020 ISBN: 9781501349164 Au$160(hb) 336pp The two decades before his death in 2018 saw an extraordinary rise in the reputation of American “ordinary language” philosopher Stanley Cavell. Although always an established figure …
Read MoreV.F. Perkins on Movies: Collected Shorter Film Criticism
Douglas Pye (ed.) V.F. Perkins on Movies: Collected Shorter Film Criticism Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan, 2020 ISBN: 9780814346433 US$34.99 (pb) 586pp (Review copy supplied by Wayne State University Press) “In the constellation of my personal cinematic imaginary, Film as Film by V.F. (Victor) Perkins and Theory of Film Practice (French title: Praxis du cinema) by Noël Burch are …
Read MoreMysteries of Cinema: Reflections on Film Theory, History and Culture 1982 – 2016
Adrian Martin Mysteries of Cinema: Reflections on Film Theory, History and Culture 1982 – 2016 University of Western Australia Publishing, 2020 ISBN: 9781760801298 AU$29.99 (pb) 484pp (Hardback edition published and supplied for review by Amsterdam University Press, 2018) A life of analysing films, if it is to be truly liveable, needs to occur in this curious but finally rather delightful …
Read MoreThe Structure of Complex Images
Robert B. Ray, The Structure of Complex Images Palgrave Macmillan, 2020 ISBN: 9783030406301 AU$178 (hb) 265 pp This is a fascinating book. Although comprised of more or less discontinuous essays gathered from the past 20 years of Robert Ray’s work, it has a strongly coherent, novelistic character. It conjures a project with a Quest (to re-enchant film studies) and an …
Read MoreThe Maternal Imagination of Film and Film Theory
Lauren Bliss, The Maternal Imagination of Film and Film Theory Palgrave Macmillan, 2020 ISBN: 9783030458966 Au$149 (hb) 183 pp (Review copy supplied by Palgrave Macmillan) I imagine a generous but critical reader, hopefully with a well-developed sense of humour, who is neither convinced that sexist and misogynist film and media representations are so totalising as to prevent a questioning and …
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