Over the past 20 years European theatre underwent fundamental changes in terms of aesthetic focus, institutional structure and in its position in society. The impetus for these changes was provided by a new generation in the independent theatre scene. This book brings together studies on the state of independent theatre in different European countries, focusing on the fields of dance and perfor…
With machines mediating most of our cultural practices, and innovations, obsolescence and revivals constantly transforming our relation with images and sounds, media feel more unstable than ever. But was there ever a ‘stable’ moment in media history? Inventing Cinema proposes to approach this question through an archaeology and epistemology of media machines. The archaeology analyses them a…
Ute Holl explores cinema as a cultural technique of trance, unconsciously transforming everyday spatio-temporal perception. The archaeology of experimental and anthropological cinema leads into psycho-physiological laboratories of the 19th century. Through personal and systematic catenations, avant-garde filmmaking is closely linked to the emerging aesthetics of feedback in cybernetic models of…
The writer Marguerite Duras was a key figure in post-war French cinema, pioneering innovations such as the disjunction of film and image, and the primacy given to voices, silence and music. Her multisensorial approach opened up new spaces for the female experience to be expressed. Although she worked with some of the best French visual technicians and musicians of her time, critiques have often…
How do we recapture, or hold on to, the live performances we most love, and the talented artists and performers we most revere? Shakespeare and the Legacy of Loss tells the story of how 18th-century actors, novelists, and artists, key among them David Garrick, struggled with these questions through their reenactments of Shakespearean plays. For these artists, the resurgence of Shakespeare, a pl…
The release of No Time To Die in 2021 heralds the arrival of the twenty-fifth installment in the James Bond film series. Since the release of Dr. No in 1962, the cinematic James Bond has expedited the transformation of Ian Fleming's literary creation into an icon of western popular culture that has captivated audiences across the globe by transcending barriers of ideology, nation, empire, gende…
While filmic representations of ‘enemies’ are legion, film studies have so far neglected the way in which filmic mediations of enemy images have contributed to shaping cultural memories. The present volume investigates the (de)(re)constructions of enemy images in international film since the 1970s. The three parts deal with (re)configurations of the enemy in contemporary global cinemas, ana…
This collection explores the complex world of early cinema in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The story of how cinema established itself in China has not been well-understood. Cultural models for cinema-going and industry practices varied widely across China. By looking at several centers of cinematic activity, going beyond commercial fiction film to include non-fiction films (such as educational…
In a bold rethinking of the Hollywood blacklist and McCarthyite America, Joseph Litvak reveals a political regime that did not end with the 1950s or even with the Cold War: a regime of compulsory sycophancy, in which the good citizen is an informer, ready to denounce anyone who will not play the part of the earnest, patriotic American. While many scholars have noted the anti-Semitism underlying…
“In its original run on HBO, The Sopranos mattered, and it matters still,” Dana Polan asserts early in this analysis of the hit show, in which he sets out to clarify the impact and importance of the series in both its cultural and media-industry contexts. A renowned film and TV scholar, Polan combines a close and extended reading of the show itself—and of select episodes and scenes—with…