Book Description
In this groundbreaking investigation into the nature and meanings of melodrama in American culture between 1880 and 1920, Ben Singer offers a challenging new reevaluation of early American cinema and the era that spawned it. Singer looks back to the sensational or "blood and thunder" melodramas (e.g., The Perils of Pauline, The Hazards of Helen, etc.) and uncovers a fundamentally modern cultural expression, one reflecting spectacular transformations in the sensory environment of the metropolis, in the experience of capitalism, in the popular imagination of gender, and in the exploitation of the thrill in popular amusement. Written with verve and panache, and illustrated with 100 striking photos and drawings, Singer's study provides an invaluable historical and conceptual map both of melodrama as a genre on stage and screen and of modernity as a pivotal idea in social theory.
Customer Reviews:
Fantastic book on silent cliffhanger serials!.......2004-08-12
This book is a well written description of the origins and history of the silent cliffhanger serials. The author explains how the chapterplays are similar to and an expansion on the "melodrama" genre of stageplays and 1 reel films popular in the early 1900's.
The second half of the book is the heart of it, focusing on the serials themselves. The book has a number of old trade magazine advertisements for serials that show the excitement and drama serials conveyed to those theater patrons so many years ago.
This is a good companion to the books on silent serials by Kalton Lahue published back in the 1960's.
Readable introduction.......2002-11-14
This study has many of the earmarks of a Ph. D. dissertation--muted claims and qualifiers, allusions to the Frankfort School, periodic summaries--but it's a lucid, jargon-free beginning of a conversation that's long overdue. Many great American texts (literary as well as cinematic) have been excluded from academic canons and college reading lists on the grounds that they don't belong in the ironic, modernist tradition. By showing that melodrama is modernity's child, not its antithesis, Singer invites us to pay serious attention to texts whose only crime may be full disclosure of meaning and undeniable influencing of the witness.
Book Description
-- Film Comment
Thomas Doherty reveals how and why Hollywood marshaled its artistic resources on behalf of the war effort and interprets the cultural meanings and enduring legacies of the motion picture record of the war years. He explains the social, political, and economic forces that created such genre classics as Mrs. Miniver, as well as comedies, musicals, newsreels, documentaries, cartoons, and army training films. He examines the Hollywood Production Code, government propaganda films, the portrayal of women and minorities in films of the period, and Hollywood's role in World War I and Vietnam.
This revised edition includes new sections exploring the recent resurgence of interest in World War II films, including Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line.
Book Description
From the early passions of the Latin lover of the silver screen' to the adventures of modern day keroes such as Antonio Banderas, Hispanics in Hollywood is an illuminating voyage into the careers and contributions of some of film history's most legendary performers.
Customer Reviews:
Ethnicities Celebrated.......2000-10-05
By JONATHAN KIRSCH, Special to The LA Times "...An illuminating and entertaining survey of films and television programs in which Latino actors, settings or themes figure prominently, "Hispanics in Hollywood" is full of such surprises. Anthony Quinn, perhaps best known as Zorba the Greek, is only one of many actors whose Mexican origins were once concealed, and there are many others whose Latino roots have only recently come to public attention, ranging from Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Cansino) to John Gavin (born John Anthony Golenar) to Raquel Welch (born Raquel Tejada). And it was a young Emilio Estevez who boldly reclaimed his own Latino family history and thus revealed to the world that the real name of his father, Charlie Sheen, is Ramon More often Latino actors found themselves in an awkward dilemma in Hollywood, as the authors of "Hispanics in Hollywood" point out--if their Latino identities were not concealed, they were put to use in depicting stereotyped Latino characters: "maids, slum dwellers, drug addicts and gang members," co-author Luis Reyes reminds us, or "cruel dictators, mustachioed bandits and beautiful señoritas." Only in the last couple of decades have Latino actors and directors enjoyed the opportunity to tell stories about their own heritage in a more open, honest and affirming voice in movies such as "Zoot Suit," "La Bamba," "Stand and Deliver," "Selena" and "A Walk in the Clouds." Reyes, a movie publicist who is also a chronicler of Hollywood's Latin American heritage, describes the book as "an attempt to show the way Hollywood has depicted Hispanic Americans and Latin America, while also pointing out the contributions to Hollywood movies and television made by unsung Hispanic Americans as well as those more famous." Thus, his book can be approached as a serious effort to ponder the issues of race and ethnicity in American pop culture and, at the same time, as one of those useful reference works that can be pulled down from the shelf when puzzling over some old and obscure movie on cable.
Book Description
The James Bond epic is the most popular film series in silver screen history: it is estimated that a quarter of the world's population has seen a Bond feature. The saga of Britain's best-loved martini hound (who we all know prefers his favorite drink "shaken, not stirred") has adapted to changing times for four decades without ever abandoning its tried-and-true formula of diabolical international conspiracy, sexual intrigue, and incredible gadgetry.
James Chapman expertly traces the annals of celluloid Bond from its inauguration with 1962's Dr. No through its progression beyond Ian Fleming's spy novels to the action-adventure spectaculars of GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies. He argues that the enormous popularity of the series represents more than just the sum total of the films' box-office receipts and involves questions of film culture in a wider sense.
Licence to Thrill chronicles how Bond, a representative of a British Empire that no longer existed in his generation, became a symbol of his nation's might in a Cold War world where Britain was no longer a primary actor. Chapman describes the protean nature of Bond villains in a volatile global political scene -- from Soviet scoundrels and Chinese rogues in the 1960s to a brief flirtation with Latin American drug kingpins in the 1980s and back to the Chinese in the 1990s. The book explores how the movies struggle with changing societal ethics -- notably, in the evolution in the portrayal of women, showing how Bond's encounters with the opposite sex have evolved into trysts with leading ladies as sexually liberated as Bond himself.
The Bond formula has proved remarkably durable and consistently successful for roughly a third of cinema's history -- half the period since the introduction of talking pictures in the late 1920s. Moreover, Licence to Thrill argues that, for the foreseeable future, the James Bond films are likely to go on being what they have always been, a unique and very special kind of popular cinema.
Customer Reviews:
Still a Survivor.......2006-11-16
James Chapman's "Licence to Thrill" examines the James Bond cinematic series from the perspective of its time and place as it fit into the real world. The series had its effect on society and in turn society affected the series. Initially the James Bond series was an innovative trend setting piece of filmmaking that had a great influence on society in the 60s. In a reversal the series soon became a reflection of society going into the 70s copying trends rather than setting them. Withstanding four decades the James Bond cinematic franchise is still a survivor and has remained an ever changing constant for an ever changing world. James Chapman's insights are objective and intelligent and always endearing.
5/5.......2002-03-31
Over the past five decades, James Bond films have established themselves as the most popular film series in history. Some estimates have it that a quarter of the world's population has seen a 007 film, and this worldwide fascination with the Bond character has manifested itself in the thousands of fan clubs, fan conventions, web sites, and movie guides in existence today. But while there exists an abundance of literature about Ian Fleming's fictional spy, no book has actually considered the 007 phenomenon in the context of cultural and film history until now. James Chapman's Licence to Thrill attempts to examine the Bond series in a scholarly manner, and succeeds marvelously at doing so.
From the start, Chapman's meticulous, comprehensive study of these films is presented in an objective and refreshing manner. Chapman immediately sets the tone for the book, arguing that the viewer needs to look beyond the fantastic scenarios and hedonistic nature of Bond's life in order to grasp the real meanings of these films -- that is, that they nostalgically represent Great Britain's global strength during an actual period of decline. Chapman goes on to discuss the various film genres (spy thrillers, cliffhangers, action movies) that have been hybridized into the "Bondian" formula, and goes on to show that the Bond films themselves, despite borrowing upon other formulas, have actually developed their own ideology.
The most impressive aspect of Licence to Thrill is its comprehensiveness. Chapman places the Bond films in the context of film history, and by doing so, provides a larger framework by which to assess their cultural impact. He also examines the influence of other film genres on the Bond series; for example, the influence of the "blaxploitation" movement of the early 70's on 1972's Live and Let Die, which features an unusually high proportion of black characters for a Bond film. The rest of the book concentrates on the Bond films themselves, grouping them according to theme and charting the development and evolution of the franchise.
Although Chapman clearly illustrates that the generic formula of these films is virtually designed to change with the British political climate, he also maintains that Bond's adventures are representative works of nostalgia for British imperialism and nationalism. For example, in discussing 1983's Octopussy, which is set largely in India, Chapman notes the numerous television series in Britain during the 1980's devoted to the former British colony and the abundance of works at the time analyzing Anglo-Indian relations. Other films are set against the contemporary British political mindset, such as 1981's For Your Eyes Only, which strongly references Thatcherism, and the end result is that we see the films in an entirely new light.
Enlightening, entertaining and thought provoking, this book is highly recommended for anyone who is serious about film. For the rabid Bond fan, it is simply indispensable.
Outstanding and breakthrough work of 007 scholarship.......2001-12-04
If youýre like I am, you probably cannot get enough of the world of James Bond, Agent 007. The male (and female) fascination with Ian Flemingýs fictional creation is now clearly ubiquitous since 007 conventions, fan clubs, web sites, and ýofficialý and ýunofficialý James Bond movie guides can be found all over the world. The recent re-release of special edition James Bond films on VHS and DVD provides a clearer indication of the success that the Bondian industry enjoys. While there exists an abundance of literature about Ian Flemingýs fictional spy, few works actually consider the 007 phenomenon in a serious manner. In fact, the only title that comes to mind is Kingsley Amisý 1965 work, The James Bond Dossier, an extended essay analyzing Ian Flemingýs secret agent as he appears in print. There has yet to be a thorough discussion of the Bond novels and their adaptation into film ý until now.
Released this past spring by Columbia University Press, Licence to Thrill by James Chapman breaks new ground as an in-depth study of James Bond and lends credibility to addressing the 007 phenomenon in a scholarly manner. Chapmanýs introduction, ýTaking James Bond Seriously,ý sets the tone for the work: this is not another fan guide to the behind-the-scene insights from the movies. As Chapman writes, the ýnumerous books on the Bond filmsýall emanated from what might be termed the Bond fan culture rather than academia.ý Arguing that one must look beyond 007ýs hedonistic male fantasy life in order to observe how his imaginary world nostalgically represents Great Britainýs global strength as Empire and Cold Warrior during an actual period of decline, Chapmanýs meticulously researched and comprehensive critical study of James Bond is presented in an objective and refreshing manner.
Chapmanýs early discussion of various genres of film (British imperialist spy thriller, cliffhanger adventure serial, Hollywood action movie, etc.) and the nature of British cinema adequately provides the reader with the requisite knowledge necessary to understand the role of cinematography. Chapman allows proper transition so as to introduce his concept of the ýBondianý genre ý that is, that the Bond films themselves, despite borrowing upon other formulas, have actually developed their own ideology. The most impressive aspect of Licence to Thrill is its comprehensive narrative. Despite an overabundance of facts (citing, for example, that Kingsley Amis himself argues that Bond is not a spy but is rather presented as a secret agent), quotes, and analyses, the book flows smoothly. That Chapman does not limit his analysis merely to Bond films but rather incorporates British and American films preceding them ý Bulldog Drummond (1929), Dick Barton ý Special Agent (1948), North by Northwest (1959) ý allows the reader to place Bond films within a larger framework. In doing so, Chapmanýs argument that the James Bond film series exemplifies the progression of spy thrillers films from B-movie to big-budget motion picture stature is soundly supported. Chapman also explores other film movementsý impact upon the Bond series, particularly the ýblaxploitationý movement of the early 1970ýs (Live and Let Die, 1972) and the rise in popularity of kung-fu movies (The Man With the Golden Gun, 1974). Chapman illustrates that Stephen Spielbergýs 1975 blockbuster, Jaws, inspired the creation of Bondýs infamous seven feet two inch steel-toothed nemesis bearing the same name.
Having provided background in the broader subject of cinema, Chapman devotes the rest of his work to the actual Bond films themselves and groups them according to theme, the development and implementation of what he terms the ýBond formula,ý and, in some cases, the actor who portrays Agent 007. Although he clearly illustrates that the generic formula of the Bond films is quite malleable depending upon numerous political and cultural developments of the period, Chapman nonetheless maintains that the James Bond films serve as representative works of nostalgia for empire and British nationalism. In his discussion of Octopussy (1983) in which much of the action is set in India, for example, Chapman notes the numerous television series in Britain during the 1980ýs devoted to the former British colony and the abundance of works analyzing Anglo-Indian relations while other films, such as For Your Eyes Only (1981), reference Prime Minister Margaret Thatcherýs ýIron Ladyý reputation.
Surveying all the Bond films from Dr. No (1962) to Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) ý including the comical Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again, the 1983 remake of Thunderball (1965) ý Chapmanýs Licence to Thrill is a definite must-read for any James Bond enthusiast. Enlightening and thought provoking, the book maintains the readerýs interest throughout and documents the chronological progression of the longest and most successful film series to date. And while it will certainly not leave you ýshaken,ý Licence to Thrill definitely ýstirsý interest.
Recommended for Bond fans & popular culture students........2000-07-04
Licence to Thrill is a cultural review of the James Bond movies and provides an excellent survey of the changing Bond image in movies; from its start with the 1962 Dr. No to its progression beyond Fleming's spy novels to classic films. Bond became a symbol of a Cold War world where Britain was no longer the ruler: this examines how movies reflect and affect social change through images of politics and culture.
One of the Best of its Kind.......2000-04-12
The trouble with being a fan of something (and I mean a real fan - short for fanatic) is that we read everything on our subject and often know when the author is faking it, or if he knows his stuff. This Chapman guy knows his stuff, and I agree with most of what he says. I have a few quibbles here and there, but generally it is a good read. Being a fan of the series is, however, a prerequisite for understanding what he is saying, and I really like the way he often compares the Bond novels with their film counterparts. Stay away from the Steven Jay Rubin books, and get this (now if we could only get British author John Brosnan to update and edit his James Bond In The Cinema Book...)
Book Description
Tuning Out Blackness fills a glaring omission in U.S. and Latin American television studies by looking at the history of Puerto Rican television. In exploring the political and cultural dynamics that have shaped racial representations in Puerto Rico’s commercial media from the late 1940s to the 1990s, Yeidy M. Rivero advances critical discussions about race, ethnicity, and the media. She shows that televisual representations of race have belied the racial egalitarianism that allegedly pervades Puerto Rico’s national culture. White performers in blackface have often portrayed âblacknessâ in local television productions, while black actors have been largely excluded.
Drawing on interviews, participant observation, archival research, and textual analysis, Rivero considers representations of race in Puerto Rico, taking into account how they are intertwined with the island’s status as a U.S. commonwealth, its national culture, its relationship with Cuba before the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and the massive influx of Cuban migrants after 1960. She focuses on locally produced radio and television shows, particular television events, and characters that became popular media iconsâfrom the performer Ramón Rivero’s use of blackface and âblackâ voice in the 1940s and 1950s, to the battle between black actors and television industry officials over racism in the 1970s, to the creation, in the 1990s, of the first Puerto Rican situation comedy featuring a black family. As the twentieth century drew to a close, multinational corporations had purchased all Puerto Rican stations and threatened to wipe out locally produced programs. Tuning Out Blackness brings to the forefront the marginalization of nonwhite citizens in Puerto Rico’s media culture and raises important questions about the significance of local sites of television production.
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The Color of Theater: Race, Culture, and Contemporary Performancee
Manufacturer: Continuum International Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0826456391 |
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Producing Dreams, Consuming Youth: Mexican Americans and Mass Media
Vicki Mayer
Manufacturer: Rutgers University Press
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0813533279 |
Book Description
Producing Dreams, Consuming Youth takes us behind the scenes in San Antonio, Texas, a major market for Mexican American popular culture. Through the voices of those who produce and consume mass media, we see how the media brings together communities of Mexican Americans as they pursue cultural dreams, identification, and empowerment.
At the heart of this book is a debate about the future of Mexican American media, and thus of the youth market. How do media professionals imagine ethnic youths? How do young Mexican Americans accept, negotiate, and resist these images of themselves? Producing Dreams, Consuming Youth emphasizes the paradoxes of media industries that seek to include youths of color while profiting from their creative energies.
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Feminist Discourse and Spanish Cinema: Sight Unseen (Oxford Hispanic Studies)
Susan Martin-Marquez
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 019815979X |
Book Description
Feminist Discourse and Spanish Cinema provides the first detailed consideration of women directors working before the Civil War and during Franco's dictatorship, and is the first to explore the impact of feminism on filmmaking in Spain. Part I focuses on three directors, Rosario Pi, Ana Mariscal, and Pilar Miro, whose careers span the history of sound cinema in Spain. The book highlights their struggle to achieve agency within the male-dominated film industry, and draws upon extensive archival research as well as in-depth textual analysis to reveal their negotiation with questions of authorship, female subjectivity and national cinema. Part II explores six films by women and men directorsDSthree each from the Francoist and post-Franco periodsDSthat foreground a number of issues of fundamental importance to feminism, from the indoctrination and 'performance' of gender, to the fraught effort to reconcile power with sexual pleasure. The Afterword treats the remarkable recent boom in women directors and traces the shift in their work towards the exploration of multiple forms of difference.
Book Description
A book for everyone interested in Hollywood and especially the history of Latinos in American film.
Heroes, Lovers, and Others tells the fascinating history of Latinos in film, from the birth of the movies to the present, through a series of stories about Hollywood's most famous and enduring stars. The book features such Latino legends as Dolores del Rio, Rita Hayworth, Ramon Navarro, Desi Arnaz, Anthony Quinn, Raquel Welch, Selma Hayek, and Antonio Banderas. But this is much more than a just collection of celebrity stories. Clara E. Rodríguez shows how the careers of these stars were shaped by the temper of the times in which they lived and how they managed their own sense of personal and screen identities. The sparkling parade of Latino film stars presented against the backdrop of American social and cultural history changes the way we think of race and ethnicity in Hollywood and challenges us to reexamine conventional ways of viewing our past. Not least of all, Heroes, Lovers, and Others will inspire readers to watch old and new movies with a sharpened sense of the personal, artistic, and social dynamics underlying their history and, by telling the stories of several long-forgotten stars, make readers wish these stories themselves would be made into movies. 57 b/w photographs.
Customer Reviews:
A great read AND a wonderful gift.......2006-01-25
It was that gorgeous sepia cover of Rita Hayworth that first drew me to this book. I'm not a movie buff, but that classic pose captivated me, and when I saw the numerous dramatic stills of famous screen icons from across the entire history of film, I immediately purchased four copies-for my mother, my two aunts and my niece.
Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino, I quickly learned, and she had begun her career as a a Latin dancer and actor. Her's is only one of a flood of stories of Latinos stars throughout Hollywood's first century. The book is an easy and quick read, but I ended up learning a lot about how the history of Hollywood and America are intertwined. I felt that the historical context deepened and enriched the stories and provided them with a greater meaning.
One of my favorite stories is about an Austrian actor named Jacob Krantz, whose acting career was going nowhere until he changed his name to Ricardo Cortez and immediately became a big star. His brother Stanley followed him to Hollywood, also changed his name to Cortez, and won several awards as a cinematographer. And did you know that Anthony Quinn came to the US illegally, and picked crops, preached on street corners and boxed before becoming a major star?
The author writes with an accessible style and great insight. The pictures are wonderful. I'm neither Latino nor a big movie-goer, but I still loved "Heroes, Lovers and Others" because it is such a lively collage of wonderful stories about America and the rich variety of people who populate it.
The Best Of Its Kind.......2004-11-30
Rodriguez gets us thinking about the place of Latinos in US feature film from the very beginning to the present and in a sense, it's a book with a happy ending, because after decades of near-invisibility, Latinos and Latinas are becoming highly visible and indeed stars with huge followings. I mean, like it or not, Jennifer Lopez has millions of fans, as does Christina Aguillera. Intriguing are her portraits of Hollywood's Latin stars of days gone by, from the dashing Gilbert Roland to the gay superstar Ramon Novarro, and the answers to trivia questions like Olga San Juan. But she has some facts wrong, and it makes me wonder if even I, a non-Latino, can pick up some mistakes she has made, who knows maybe there are even more I don't know about! In her article on raquel Welch, first of all she deplores the fact that Jo Raquel Tejada was forced to change her name to Welch. She says that "Welch was another name in her family." Every fan of Raquel's in fact knows that "Welch" is the name of Raquel's first husband, and she didn't "steal" it or anything from some other member of her own family. Rodriguez also claims that Raquel made her screen debut in the call-girl melodrama A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME, when most historians credit her in appearing in the Elvis programmer ROUSTABOUT way before AHINAH. But, all in all you can't go wrong with Rodriguez (except when she goes wrong), and I love her description of Anthony Quinn as having the greatest gift of a screen actor, the ability to make audiences think they have known the character he is playing in any particular picture, that they have known him for a long time. It's a quirky observation, but a valid one, and a valuable one to boot.
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- A wonderful introductory text to the glories of L.A. film
- Over 300 excellent reviews, 70 stills,video info.,chronology
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Latin American Films, 1932-1994: A Critical Filmography
Ronald Schwartz
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0786422262 |
Product Description
In 1931 Antonio Moreno completed Santa, Mexicos first true sound film. In it he established one of the foremost genres of Latin American cinemathe popular melodramawhich continues to this day. Latin American filmmakers came to the fore in the fifties and sixties and, as 1992s Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) showed, Latin American films continue to be a major part of the international film scene. In this work over 300 of the most significant films from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and other Latin American countries are covered. Each entry includes the English title, director, year of release, running time, language, country and a detailed plot synopsis. Notes about the production and the filmmakers are also provided for many entries.
Customer Reviews:
A wonderful introductory text to the glories of L.A. film.......1997-12-11
Schwartz writes clearly, without intellectual pretensions and surveys over 300 films, making them come alive for us with his words. An avid fan and popularizer of the Spanish language film--Schwartz did the same thing for Spain in his last book, THE GREAT SPANISH FILMS (1950-1990) (Scarecrow Press)---this tome on Latin America is even more accomplished since it surveys 13 countries and over 300 films--with 70 gorgeous stills and notes on video availability. Bravo! A film book not impeded by political theory and critical rhetoric. Que viva Carmen Miranda and Schwartz.
Over 300 excellent reviews, 70 stills,video info.,chronology.......1997-12-11
Schwartz covers a huge area--from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean to all of South America--with his perusal of over 300 films, including U.S. and Chicano co-productions. He seeks to promote the films themselves of that "uncertain screen," Latin American cinema, "seen film by film." Using the original press books, the author presents in a terse, well-written introduction, a brief history of L.A. film and then examines the credits, plot, gives his own critical view as well as fascinating notes about the film, its production, actors and other multi-faceted aspects of Third World cinema. Besides a useful Chronology, the films are organized alphabetically, with 70 interesting stills interspersed, a note on video sources and availability (mostly VHS), a short bibliography and a bi-lingual index. The book is most useful because of its "panoramic" view and its lack of intellectual pretention. He surveys his subject for a wide audience and provides much new information for the uniniated stude
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