Category Archive for: ‘Issue 9 – Reviews’

Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema 1930-1934. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. ISBN 0 231 11094 4 430 pp. A$37.95 Uploaded 1 March 2000 In the early 1990s Turner Entertainment began releasing a series of Hollywood films produced during the “Pre-Code” (1930-1934) period under their “Forbidden Hollywood” banner. The term “Pre-Code”, however, was not strictly accurate …

William D. Routt Uploaded 1 March 2000 Nicole Brenez, De la figure en général et du corps en particulier: l’invention figurative au cinéma. Paris, Brussels: De Boeck Université. 1998. ISBN 2-8041-2999-3. 466pp. For Criticism: part one Readers of this journal should not need much of an introduction to Nicole Brenez, maître de conférences in Cinematographic Studies for the University of Paris I, …

Adrian Martin Uploaded 1 March 2000 Tag Gallagher, The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998. ISBN 030608730. 852pp. US$24.50 (paper) It is difficult to be “with” Rossellini but it is even harder to be “without” him. – Don Ranvaud [1] Human beings are always uneasy. – Roberto Rossellini [2] 1. Until the publication of this magnificent and …

James B. Twitchell, Lead Us into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism. (Columbia University Press, 1999) ISBN 0 231 11518 0 310pp US$28.50(paper) (Review copy supplied by Columbia University Press) Uploaded 1 March 2000 “THINGS R US” James Twitchell is very excited about consumption, and he has done us the service of writing a book so that we can be …

Andrew Higson & Richard Maltby, “Film Europe” and ” Film America”: Cinema, Commerce and Cultural Exchange, 1920-1939. University of Exeter Press, 1999. ISBN 0 85989 545 9 (hb) ISBN 0 85989 546 7 (pb) 47.50 stg (hb) 20.00 stg (pb) 406pp. (Review copy supplied by University of Exeter Press) Uploaded 1 March 2000 “Film Europe” and ” Film America”: Cinema, …

The Art of Sorting Out: Chris Marker’s Immemory by Guillaume Ollendorff Review of Chris Marker, Immemory. CD-ROM, CP7102. France. stg £38.50  Uploaded 12 November 1999 1. A strange image, a collage. Passing your mouse over some of its elements, words appear: Museum, Cinema, Photography, War, Travel, Poetry, Memory. All are starting points for thematic trips. Your ride must be done slowly (Marker …

John Roberts, The Art of Interruption: Realism, Photography and the Everyday. Manchester and New York , Manchester University Press, 1998. ISBN 0 719035600 (hb) ISBN 0 7190 35619 (pb) 241pp £40.00(hb) £16.99(pb) (Review copy supplied by Manchester University Press) Uploaded 1 March 2000 Kafka’s stories begin with the banal of everyday. These events and experiences are excessively ordinary and the …

William J. Mitchell, e-topia: “Urban life, Jim – but not as we know it” Cambridge, MA., MIT Press, 1999 ISBN 0 262 13355 5 184pp. US$22.50 (Review copy supplied by MIT Press) Uploaded 1 March 2000 In his stand-up comedy days back in the 1960s, Woody Allen used to tell a great story about mechanical objects with attitude. He details the …

Catharine Lumby, Gotcha: Life in a Tabloid World. St Leonards, Allen & Unwin, 1999. ISBN 1 86508 073 X 280pp AU$16.95 (paper) (Review copy supplied by Allen & Unwin) Uploaded 1 March 2000 I first read Gotcha swanning round a swimming pool somewhere in Queensland – the perfect book for holiday indulgence … just taxing enough to remind me of work and …

Michael J. Shapiro, Cinematic Political Thought: Narrating Race, Nation and Gender. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999. ISBN 0 7486 1289 0 176 pp £16.95 (paper) (Review copy supplied by Edinburgh University Press) Uploaded 1March 2000  Michael Shapiro’s latest book confirms the author of Reading the Postmodern Polity and Violent Cartographies‘s status as an interdisciplinary scholar; his range takes in critical theory and cultural …

Stuart Cunningham and John Sinclair (eds), Floating Lives: The Media and Asian Diasporas. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 2000 ISBN 0 7022 31223 244pp AU$29.95 (paper) (Review copy supplied by University of Queensland Press) Uploaded 1 March 2000 Floating Lives: The Media and Asian Diasporas is far more specific in its focus than its title might suggest, and by and large …

Philip Turner, Moskva Kino: The Cinemas of Southwest and Central Moscow (Brantwood Books, St Paul’s Cray, Kent, 1999) ISBN 0 9531021 0 6 44pp. £6.99stg Philip Turner, Warner Cinemas: An Outline History (Brantwood Boks, St Paul’s Cray, Kent, 1997) ISBN 0 9531021 2 2 30pp. £9.95stg Philip Turner, MGM Cinemas: An Outline History (Brantwood Books, St Paul’s Cray, Kent, 1998) ISBN 0 9531021 3 0 …

Philip Brophy (ed.), Cinesonic: The World of Sound in Film. North Ryde, Australian Film Television and Radio School, 1999. ISBN 1 876351 08 X 266pp AU$24.95 (paper) Uploaded 1 March 2000 | 1160 words Philip Brophy’s new film sound anthology Cinesonic is a highly engaging and significant publication that italicises the rapidly growing importance of film sound/music studies in local and international contexts, and …

Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity. Duke University Press Durham and London 1998. ISBN 08223 2243 9 329pp US$17.95 (paper) (Review copy supplied by Duke University Press) Uploaded 1 March 2000 Most people will acknowledge that masculinity has become somewhat of a favoured topic in the last ten years or so, but what about masculinity without men? There continues to be chapters …

Sarah Kember, Virtual Anxiety: Photography, New Technologies and Subjectivity. Manchester University Press, Great Britain, 1998. ISBN 0 7190 4528 2 (hb) ISBN 0 7190 4529 0 (pb) 150pp £45.00 (hb) £14.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Manchester University Press) Uploaded 1 March 2000 Kember’s book Virtual Anxiety: Photography, New Technologies and Subjectivity aims to explore the issue of technological change and the …

Ellen Seiter, Television and New Media Audiences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0 19 871141 7 152pp AU$55.00 (pb) Uploaded 1 March 2000 Published as one of a series, the Oxford Television Studies edited by Charlotte Brunsdon and John Caughie, Ellen Seiter’s contribution constitutes a powerful argument for the value of qualitative methods in television audience research. In a …

Julie James Bailey, Reel Women: Working in Film and Television. North Ryde, Australian Film Television and Radio School, 1999. 408pp AU$29.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Allen & Unwin) Uploaded 1 March 2000 Julie James Bailey’s book addresses the experiences of women working in the areas of film and television production though their own first hand accounts. The scale and …

Sue Thornham (ed), Feminist Film Theory: A Reader. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999) ISBN 0 7486 0890 7 361pp NZ$64.95 Sue Thornham, Passionate Detachments: An Introduction to Feminist Film Theory. (London: Arnold, 1997) ISBN 0 340 65225 X 204pp NZ$64.95 Uploaded 1 March 2000 In 1972, when the first essay included in Sue Thornham’s Feminist Film Theory: A Reader originally appeared, there was very little …

Peter Lunenfeld (ed.), The Digital Dialectic: New Essays on New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999. ISBN 0262122138 (hb) ISBN 0262621371 (pb) 320pp US$35.00 (hb) US$17.95(pb) (Review copy supplied by MIT Press) Uploaded 1 March 2000 The dust cover describes The Digital Dialectic as an “interdisciplinary jam session”- an honest enough warning for any reader about the strengths and weaknesses of this …

Joshua Gamson, Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN 0 226 28065 9 294pp US$15.00 (pb) (Review copy supplied by University of Chicago Press) Uploaded 1 March 2000 Joshua Gamson explains up front, and without shame, in his 1998 book, Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity, why he loves …

John Barnes, The Beginnings of the Cinema in England, 1894-1901 volume 5: 1900. University of Exeter Press, 1998. ISBN 0 85989 522 X 432pp £40.00 (cloth) (Review copy supplied by the University of Exeter Press) Uploaded 1 March 2000 The eagerly awaited publication of John Barnes’ fifth volume of The Beginnings of Cinema in England marks the final instalment of this groundbreaking …

Chris Watson and Roy Shuker, In the Public Good? Censorship in New Zealand. Palmerston North, NZ: Dunmore Press, 1998. ISBN 0 86469 305 2 (pb) 220pp NZ$39.95 Uploaded 1 March 2000 Censorship is such a wonderful subject for cultural historians because it is so revealingly symptomatic. Each “moral panic” that coalesces around particular subjects and objects points to more generalized …

William H. Dutton, Society on the Line: Information Politics in the Digital Age. Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0 19 877460 5 390 pp AU$55.00 (paper) Uploaded 1 March 2000 William Dutton has written and edited an important contribution to the literature on the relationships between media and society. Dutton was the Director of the U.K. Program on Information and Communications …