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Successful in both Japan and the West, Akira had a huge impact on the international growth in popularity of manga and anime. Closely analysing the film and its key themes, Colin O'Dell and Michelle Le

The French New Wave is an essential anthology of writings by and about the critics and filmmakers of this revolutionary cinematic movement, which has had a radical impact on film practice and the way we think and write about film. The volume includes foundational writings such as Francois Truffaut's A Certain Tendency in French Cinema and Andre Bazin's La Politique des auteurs , as well writings by Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Alexandre Astruc. This new edition now represents writings by and about women critics and film-makers, including important articles by the critics Evelyne Sullerot, Michele Firk and Françoise Aude, addressing issues of gender and representation, as well as considering New Wave films in the context of contemporary political events, notably France's colonialist war on the Algerian independence movement. To accompany the case study of Godard's À bout de souffle, the new edition includes a case study of the critical reception of two films by Agnès Var

The French New Wave is an essential anthology of writings by and about the critics and filmmakers of this revolutionary cinematic movement, which has had a radical impact on film practice and the way we think and write about film. The volume includes foundational writings such as Francois Truffaut's A Certain Tendency in French Cinema and Andre Bazin's La Politique des auteurs , as well writings by Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Alexandre Astruc. This new edition now represents writings by and about women critics and film-makers, including important articles by the critics Evelyne Sullerot, Michele Firk and Françoise Aude, addressing issues of gender and representation, as well as considering New Wave films in the context of contemporary political events, notably France's colonialist war on the Algerian independence movement. To accompany the case study of Godard's À bout de souffle, the new edition includes a case study of the critical reception of two films by Agnès Var

Drawing on film theory, literary modernism, psychology and art history, Fields of View elucidates an expanded network of connections between avant-garde film and wider culture. In this bold and origin

Drawing on film theory, literary modernism, psychology and art history, Fields of View elucidates an expanded network of connections between avant-garde film and wider culture. In this bold and origin

A Critical and Interpretive History Although new writing and research on British cinema have burgeoned over the past fifteen years, few books provide a coherent overview of this fascinating and elusiv

A lucid and engaging study of the enigmatic stardom of Natalie Wood, locating her star persona in the changing production contexts of Hollywood and in the shifting perceptions of female sexuality and

Ozu Yasujiro’s moving family drama, Tokyo monogatari/Tokyo Story (1953), is universally acknowledged as one of the most significant Japanese films ever made, and regularly cited as one of the greatest films of all time in polls of leading critics and filmmakers around the world. Telling the story of an elderly couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their grown-up children, the film contrasts the behaviour of their children, who are too busy to pay their parents much attention, and their widowed daughter-in-law who treats them with hospitable kindness. In its complex portrait of human motivation and lively sense of social space, it offers a profound and poignant insight into the generational shifts of postwar Japan. Alastair Phillips combines a close analysis of the film and its key locations - the city of Tokyo, the town of Onomichi and the coastal resort of Atami - with a discussion of its representation of Japanese society at a time of great cultural change. Drawing upon Japanese and

The French Cinema Book offers an innovative and accessible account of the richness and diversity of French film history from the 1890s to the 2010s. This revised, updated and expanded new edition cont

What is 'black cinema'? Is it a valid category? What can films from as far afield economically and geographically, as Nigeria and Hollywood possibly have in common? This clear and illuminating guide i

When it was released in 1995, Dead Man puzzled many audiences and critics. Jim Jarmusch's reputation was for directing slick, hip contemporary films. And Dead Man was a black-and-white Western. As ti

Music video is a popular form worldwide. It is a teachable and accessible topic because the videos are familiar to students, easy to obtain, and short. And because it is always changing, it makes an

This study offers a fresh approach to the remarkable German film The Lives of Others (2006), known for its compelling representation of a Stasi surveillance officer and the moral and ethical turmoil that results when he begins spying on a playwright and his actress lover.Annie Ring analyses the film's cinematography, mise-en-scène and editing, tracing connections with Hollywood movies such as Casablanca and Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain in the film's portrayal of an individual rebelling against a brutal dehumanising regime. Drawing on archival sources, including primary research from the Stasi files themselves, as well as Enlightenment philosophies of art and Brecht’s theories on theatre dating from his GDR years, she explores the film's strong but much-disputed claims to historical authenticity. She examines the way the film tracks the world-changing political shift that took place at the end of the Cold War – away from the collective dreams of socialism and towards the dreams of the

Peter Weir's haunting and allusive Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), set in 1900, tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of three schoolgirls and their teacher on a trip to a local geological formation. The film is widely hailed as a classic of new Australian cinema, seen as exemplary of a peculiarly Australian style of heritage filmmaking.Anna Backman Rogers' study considers Picnic from feminist, psychoanalytic and decolonialising perspectives, exploring its setting in a colonised Australian bushland in which the Aboriginal people are a spectral presence in a landscape stolen from them in pursuit of the white man's 'terra nullius'. She delves into the film's production history, addressing director Weir's influences and preoccupations at the time of its making, its reception and its lasting impact on visual culture more broadly. Rogers addresses the film's treatment of the young schoolgirls and their teachers, seemingly, as embodiments of an archetype of the ‘eternal feminin

Often hailed as the 'best' James Bond film, From Russia With Love (1963) is celebrated for its direction by Terence Young, memorable performances from Sean Connery in his second outing as 007, Pedro Armendáriz as Kerim, Lotte Lenya as the lesbian villain Colonel Rosa Klebb, and Robert Shaw as Red Grant, the sexually ambiguous SPECTRE assassin. And regardless of its place within the longest-running continuous film series in cinema history, it is also an outstanding example of the British spy thriller in its own right.Llewella Chapman's study of the iconic film pinpoints its place within the James Bond film franchise, and its significant cultural value to critics and fans as well as this film’s important place within British cinema history more widely. Drawing on a broad range of archival sources, Chapman traces the film's development and production history, including its adaptation from Ian Fleming's source novel, as well as its reception and lasting impact. Chapman also considers the

An increasingly pervasive influence on contemporary European cinema and mainstream Hollywood, American independent films have frequently provided the most experimental and distinctive voices in US cin

The new edition ofThe British Cinema Book has been thoroughly revised and updated to provide a comprehensive introduction to themajorperiods, genres, studios,film-makers and d

Shakespeare's plays have inspired British Oscar-winners and spaghetti Westerns, Bollywood thrillers, and Soviet epics. Covering twenty plays, Daniel Rosenthal's selection of 100 Shakespeare films spa

In exploring the exceptionally varied career of Tony Leung, one of greater China's most acclaimed contemporary film stars, Mark Gallagher examines the dissemination and reception of Chinese cinema and

Roger Luckhurst's study of Kubrick's dark masterpiece 'The Shining' illuminates the film's themes, tropes and resonances through a detailed analysis of sequences and performances. Taking the maze as a

The Big Sleep: Marlowe and Vivian practising kissing; General Sternwood shivering in a hothouse full of orchids; a screenplay, co-written by Faulkner, famously mysterious and difficult to solve. Relea

Richard Weight's study places 'Porridge' in the context of 1970s social upheavals, explores how the series satirises structures of class and authority through Fletch and Godber's battles to outwit the

Amitabh Bachchan’s transnational fame as one of cinema’s biggest global stars is both unprecedented and unparalleled. His career spans five decades and stretches the boundaries of the very meaning of

On Kubrick is a critical study of Stanley Kubrick's career, beginning with his earliest feature, Fear and Desire (1953), and ending with his posthumous production of A.I., Artificial Intelligence (20

Fashioning Film Stars brings together work by established and emerging scholars in the field of film costume and star studies to address the significance of the relationships between fashion, dress,

Unforgiven is dedicated to Don Siegel and Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood's two cinematic mentors, who represent, respectively, the legacy of the classic Hollywood Western and the radical updating of the

In the first dedicated title on this landmark political comedy, James Walters provides an in-depth study of the programme's achievements, by examining its power and influence within society and evalua

Television drama plays a central role in television schedules and an almost unprecedented range of TV drama is now being broadcast on terrestrial, cable and satellite channels. TV dramas entertain us

Edge of Darkness (BBC 1985)is aseminal 80s political thriller, broadcast in a time of high paranoia about the secret state and the hazards of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons proliferat

Despite its long and difficult production history, in 1967 Charlie Chaplin told an interviewer, "I think I like City Lights the best of all my films."Aesthetically, technologically, and culturally, C

Electric Edwardians presents a stunning visual record of the films of Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon combined with an illuminating discussion of the films and the social context of their production

Amores Perros (2000), directed by first-time film-maker Alejandro Gonz?lez I??rittu, with its intersecting storylines and treatment of urban violence and decay, kick-started a renaissance for Mexico'

Aristocrat and Marxist, master equally of harsh realism and sublime melodrama, Luchino Visconti (1906-1976) was without question one of the greatest European film directors. His career as a film-make

In the twenty years preceding the First World War, cinema rapidly developed from a fairground curiosity into a major industry and social institution, a source of information and entertainment for mil

Offering a fresh perspective on The General, arguably one of the most successful American films of the silent era, this insightful text analyses its initial critical reception and the thematic and sty

Cracker (1993-1996; 2007) was one of the stand-out television series of the 1990s, reinvigorating the television crime drama and winning both critical plaudits and ratings success. In Fitz, its flawed

Michael Chanan traces the history of the documentary from the first Lumiere films to Grierson and his contemporaries, through to Free Cinema, Cinema verite and Direct Cinema, up to the current resurg

Bringing Up Baby, directed by Howard Hawks in 1938, is one of the greatest screwball comedies and a treasure from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Cary Grant plays a naive and repressed palaeosaurologist

Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) marked a transition in American film-making, and its success - as a work of art as a creative `property" exploited by its studio, Paramount Pictures; and a

One of the most brilliant film-makers in post-war French and world cinema, Jean-Pierre Melville now enjoys renewed popularity. His Bob le flambeur (with its street-wise Montmartre and Pigalle settin