This collection of essays, by well known writers on the subject of writing for television, is divided into three sections, with the first one devoted to the debates on quality television. The second one focuses on literature and television. The final section examines 'Science on television', with series editors from Britain and Germany giving first-hand accounts of the scope for serious science…
Verhoeff investigates the emergence of the western genre, made in the first two decades of cinema (1895-1915). By analyzing many unknown and forgotten films from international archives she traces the relationships between films about the American West, their surrounding films, and other popular media such as photography, painting, (pulp) literature, Wild West Shows and popular ethnography. Thro…
Since the late 1990s, there has been a marked increase in academic interest in what are sometimes called 'utility films', intended for purposes of information, training, teaching or advertising. Although such research was long overdue, the current academic output tends to be restricted in scope, paying little attention to the films' textual features: the means they deploy in defending their inf…
In 1923, Victor Sjöström (1879-1960) got an offer from Goldwyn Pictures to come to Hollywood. This was nothing unusual for a successful European director: - Metro's bring - ing them in by car load - , as Photoplay stated in 1926. At the time, Sjöström was Sweden's most renowned director, who had become world famous for his austere and naturalistic film style. Sjöström stayed in Hollywood …
In many senses, viewers have cut their teeth on the violence in American cinema: from Anthony Perkins slashing Janet Leigh in the most infamous of shower scenes; to the 1970s masterpieces of Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah and Francis Ford Coppola; to our present-day undertakings in imagining global annihilations through terrorism, war, and alien grudges. Transfigurations brings our cultural obs…
This volume brings together a wide range of explorations of the ways in which technological innovations have established new and changing conditions for the experience and study of film. The book offers analyses by such leading figures in film studies as Tom Gunning and Charles Musser, who examine the ways in which technological changes have altered the ways how cinema is conceived and how it i…
E. M. Forster first encountered Billy Budd in 1926. Some twenty years later, he embarked on a collaboration with Benjamin Britten and Eric Crozier, adapting Melville’s novella for the opera stage. The libretto they produced poignantly reaffirms the Forsterian creed of salvation through personal relationships. This study presents an extensive exploration of Forster’s involvement in the inter…
Music always mirrors and acts as a focal point for social paradigms and discourses surrounding political and national identity. The essays in this volume combine contributions on historical and present-day questions about the relationship between politics and musical creativity. The first part concentrates on musical identity and political reality, discussing ideological values in musical disco…
This fourth title in the series The Key Debates sets out where the term techne comes from, how it unleashed a revolution in thought and how the concept in the midst of the current digital revolution, once again, is influencing the study of film. In addition, the authors - among them André Gaudreault, Geoffrey Wintrop-Young, Martin Lefevbre, Dominique Chateau, Nanna Verhoeff, Andreas Fickers an…
Local multipart music practices are based on the intentionally distinct and coordinated participation of music makers in the performing act. Following the rules of interaction while promoting at the same time their personal goals, the protagonists share their own treasure trove of experiences and cultural affiliations and shape sounds and values. Such complex and dynamic processes are central t…