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      • Trusted Partner
        Individual film directors, film-makers
        July 2012

        André Téchiné

        by Bill Marshall

        This is the first full-length monograph in English about one of France's most important contemporary filmmakers, perhaps best known in the English-speaking world for his award-winning Les Roseaux sauvages/Wild Reeds of 1994. This study locates André Téchiné within historical and cultural contexts that include the Algerian War, May 1968 and contemporary globalisation, and the influence of Roland Barthes, Bertolt Brecht, Ingmar Bergman, William Faulkner, and the cinematic French New Wave. The originality of Téchiné's sixteen feature films lies in his subtle exploration of sexuality and national identity, as he challenges expectations in his depictions of gay relations, the North African dimensions of contemporary French culture, and the centre-periphery relationship between Paris and especially his native southwest. The book also looks at the collaborative nature of Téchiné's filmmaking, including his work with Catherine Deneuve, who has made more films with him than with any other director, and the role of Philippe Sarde's musical scores.

      • Trusted Partner
        Individual film directors, film-makers
        July 2013

        Anthony Asquith

        by Tom Ryall

        This is the first comprehensive critical study of Anthony Asquith. Ryall sets the director's work in the context of British cinema from the silent period to the 1960s, examining the artistic and cultural influences which shaped his films. Asquith's silent films were compared favourably to those of his eminent contemporary Alfred Hitchcock, but his career faltered during the 1930s. However, the success of Pygmalion (1938) and French Without Tears (1939), based on plays by George Bernard Shaw and Terence Rattigan, together with his significant contributions to wartime British cinema, re-established him as a leading British film maker. Asquith's post-war career includes several pictures in collaboration with Terence Rattigan, and the definitive adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1951), but his versatility is demonstrated in a number of modest genre films including The Woman in Question (1950), The Young Lovers (1954) and Orders to Kill (1958).

      • Trusted Partner
        Individual film directors, film-makers
        July 2013

        Anthony Asquith

        by Tom Ryall

        This is the first comprehensive critical study of Anthony Asquith. Ryall sets the director's work in the context of British cinema from the silent period to the 1960s, examining the artistic and cultural influences which shaped his films. Asquith's silent films were compared favourably to those of his eminent contemporary Alfred Hitchcock, but his career faltered during the 1930s. However, the success of Pygmalion (1938) and French Without Tears (1939), based on plays by George Bernard Shaw and Terence Rattigan, together with his significant contributions to wartime British cinema, re-established him as a leading British film maker. Asquith's post-war career includes several pictures in collaboration with Terence Rattigan, and the definitive adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1951), but his versatility is demonstrated in a number of modest genre films including The Woman in Question (1950), The Young Lovers (1954) and Orders to Kill (1958).

      • Trusted Partner
        Individual film directors, film-makers
        July 2012

        Anthony Asquith

        by Tom Ryall

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2017

        The cinema of Oliver Stone

        Art, authorship and activism

        by Ian Scott, Henry Thompson

        This book analyses the work of Oliver Stone - arguably one of the foremost political filmmakers in Hollywood during the last thirty years. From early productions like Platoon (1986) and Wall Street (1987) to contemporary dramas and documentaries such as World Trade Center (2006), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) and The Untold History of the United States (2012) Stone has re-defined political filmmaking in an era when Hollywood and the United States in general has been experiencing rapid and radical change. Drawing on previously unseen production files as well as hours of interviews with the director and his associates within the industry, this book is a thematic exploration of Stone's life and work, charting the development of political and aesthetic changes in his filmmaking. Those changes are mapped onto academic debates about the relationship between film and history as well as wider critiques about Hollywood and the film industry.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        June 2011

        Alain Robbe-Grillet

        by John Phillips, Diana Holmes, Robert Ingram

        Placing Robbe-Grillet's filmic oeuvre in the related contexts of both his novelistic work and the different historical and cultural periods in which his films were made, from the early 1960s to the present, the book traces lines of influence and continuity throughout his work, which is shown to exhibit a consistent preoccupation with an identifiable body of themes, motifs and structures. Close readings of all the films are skilfully combined with a thematic approach, ranging across the entire filmic corpus. The book also contains chapters on cinematography and technique. Ultimately, this lucid, comprehensive and fascinating study shows Robbe-Grillet's contribution to the evolution of the cinematic art both in France and internationally to have been considerably more important than previously acknowledged. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        October 2017

        Clive Barker

        Dark imaginer

        by Sorcha Fhlainn

        Clive Barker: Dark imaginer explores the diverse literary, film and visionary creations by the polymathic and influential British artist Clive Barker. In this necessary and timely scholarly collection, these innovative essays by leading scholars in the fields of literature, film and popular culture, explore Barker's contribution to gothic, fantasy, and horror studies, and interrogate his creative legacy. The volume consists of an extensive introduction and twelve groundbreaking essays which critically reevaluate Barker's oeuvre and include in-depth analyses of his celebrated and lesser known novels, short stories, theme park designs, screen and comic book adaptations, film direction and production, sketches and book illustrations, and responses to his material from critics and fan communities. Clive Barker: Dark imaginer reveals the breadth and depth of Barker's distinctive dark vision which continues to fascinate and flourish.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        October 2017

        Clive Barker

        Dark imaginer

        by Sorcha Fhlainn

        Clive Barker: Dark imaginer explores the diverse literary, film and visionary creations by the polymathic and influential British artist Clive Barker. In this necessary and timely scholarly collection, these innovative essays by leading scholars in the fields of literature, film and popular culture, explore Barker's contribution to gothic, fantasy, and horror studies, and interrogate his creative legacy. The volume consists of an extensive introduction and twelve groundbreaking essays which critically reevaluate Barker's oeuvre and include in-depth analyses of his celebrated and lesser known novels, short stories, theme park designs, screen and comic book adaptations, film direction and production, sketches and book illustrations, and responses to his material from critics and fan communities. Clive Barker: Dark imaginer reveals the breadth and depth of Barker's distinctive dark vision which continues to fascinate and flourish.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2007

        Karel Reisz

        by Colin Gardner, Brian McFarlane, Neil Sinyard

        Czech-born refugee Karel Reisz (1926-2002) is widely regarded as one of the seminal figures in post-war British cinema. Along with Lindsay Anderson and Tony Richardson, Reisz was a founder member of the independent Free Cinema 'movement' which attacked the parochial middle-class values of home-grown studio product with a vigorous commitment to everyday working-class subject matter and a poetically-charged film style. This was immediately recognisable in the aesthetic of the international success of Reisz's first feature, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). As the import of Free Cinema rapidly dissipated during the 'Swinging London' era, Reisz confronted the changing cultural mores of the 1960s and '70s with a series of ambivalent films that critique the anarchic free spirit of the times, including Morgan (1966), Isadora (1968), The Gambler (1974) and Dog Soldiers (1978). Drawing on Reisz's early film criticism for Sequence and Sight and Sound, as well as interdisciplinary methodologies, this first career-length study explores Reisz's personal brand of character-based realism, offering the spectator a privileged insight into an artist's developing response to subjective and historical dislocation. The book should thus prove invaluable to film scholars, cultural historians and the Reisz aficionado. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        February 2007

        Mathieu Kassovitz

        by Will Higbee, Diana Holmes, Robert Ingram

        Mathieu Kassovitz is arguably the most important filmmaker to have emerged from French cinema in the past two decades. As a director, his work often engages with highly controversial socio-political issues whilst still managing to attract and connect with a popular audience - and, above all, with a youth audience. He is also one of the few contemporary French filmmakers who is capable of productively engaging with Hollywood, in terms of cinematic style, narrative and genre, yet still retaining his own identity as a French filmmaker. In addition to his directorial successes, Kassovitz has also achieved considerable critical and commercial success in France as a screen actor. His films - whether directed by or acted in, or both - show an astonishing variety, from his early Métisse (1993), his break-through, La Haine (1995) through to Jeunet's Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2000), Astérix et Obélix: Mission Cléopatre (2002) and Gothika (2003). Will Higbee's study is the first to explore of one of the most fascinating characters in French cinema. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Individual film directors, film-makers
        July 2013

        Maurice Pialat

        by Marja Warehime

        One of the most gifted directors of the post New Wave, Maurice Pialat is frequently compared to such legendary filmmakers as Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson. A quintessentially realist filmmaker, who, like Bresson, was also trained as a painter, Pialat's particular form of realism influenced an entire generation of young filmmakers in the 1990s. This volume is the first book-length study of Pialat's cinema in English. It provides an introduction to a complex and difficult director, who saw himself as a marginal and marginalised filmmaker, but whose films are deeply rooted in French society and culture. Pialat was long considered the only major filmmaker to portray 'la France profonde', the heart of France - the people who, as he put it, 'take the subway'. Taken as a whole, Pialat's work can be seen both as an oblique autobiography and the portrait of a fundamental institution - the family - over several generations.

      • Trusted Partner
        Individual film directors, film-makers
        July 2013

        Maurice Pialat

        by Marja Warehime

        One of the most gifted directors of the post New Wave, Maurice Pialat is frequently compared to such legendary filmmakers as Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson. A quintessentially realist filmmaker, who, like Bresson, was also trained as a painter, Pialat's particular form of realism influenced an entire generation of young filmmakers in the 1990s. This volume is the first book-length study of Pialat's cinema in English. It provides an introduction to a complex and difficult director, who saw himself as a marginal and marginalised filmmaker, but whose films are deeply rooted in French society and culture. Pialat was long considered the only major filmmaker to portray 'la France profonde', the heart of France - the people who, as he put it, 'take the subway'. Taken as a whole, Pialat's work can be seen both as an oblique autobiography and the portrait of a fundamental institution - the family - over several generations.

      • Trusted Partner
        Individual film directors, film-makers
        July 2012

        Maurice Pialat

        by Marja Warehime

        One of the most gifted directors of the post New Wave, Maurice Pialat is frequently compared to such legendary filmmakers as Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson. A quintessentially realist filmmaker, who, like Bresson, was also trained as a painter, Pialat's particular form of realism influenced an entire generation of young filmmakers in the nineties. This volume is the first book-length study of Pialat's cinema in English. It provides an introduction to a complex and difficult director, who saw himself as a marginal and marginalised filmmaker, but whose films are deeply rooted in French society and culture. Pialat was long considered the only major filmmaker to portray 'la France profonde', the heart of France -- the people who, as he put it, 'take the subway'. Taken as a whole, Pialat's work can be seen both as an oblique autobiography and the portrait of a fundamental institution - the family - over several generations.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        May 2006

        Maurice Pialat

        by Marja Warehime, Diana Holmes, Robert Ingram, Susan Williams

        One of the most gifted directors of the post New Wave, Maurice Pialat is frequently compared to such legendary filmmakers as Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson. A quintessentially realist filmmaker, who, like Bresson, was also trained as a painter, Pialat's particular form of realism influenced an entire generation of young filmmakers in the nineties. This volume is the first book-length study of Pialat's cinema in English. It provides an introduction to a complex and difficult director, who saw himself as a marginal and marginalised filmmaker, but whose films are deeply rooted in French society and culture. Pialat was long considered the only major filmmaker to portray 'la France profonde', the heart of France -- the people who, as he put it, 'take the subway'. Taken as a whole, Pialat's work can be seen both as an oblique autobiography and the portrait of a fundamental institution - the family - over several generations. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Individual film directors, film-makers
        July 2013

        Henri-Georges Clouzot

        by Christopher Lloyd

        Despite his controversial reputation and international notoriety as a film-maker, no full-length study of Clouzot has ever been published in English. This book offers a significant revaluation of Clouzot's achievement, situating his career in the wider context of French cinema and society, and providing detailed and clear analysis of his major films (Le Corbeau, Quai des Orfèvres, Le Salaire de la peur, Les Diaboliques, Le Mystère Picasso). Clouzot's films combine meticulous technical control with sardonic social commentary and the ability to engage and entertain a broad public. Although his films are characterised by an all-controlling perfectionism, allied to documentary veracity and a disturbing bleakness of vision, Clouzot is well aware that his is an art of illusion. His fondness for anatomising social pretence, the deception, violence and cruelty practised by individuals and institutions, drew him repeatedly to the thriller as a convenient and compelling model for plots and characters, but his source texts and the usual conventions of the genre receive distinctly unconventional treatment.

      • Trusted Partner
        Individual film directors, film-makers
        July 2013

        Henri-Georges Clouzot

        by Christopher Lloyd

        Despite his controversial reputation and international notoriety as a film-maker, no full-length study of Clouzot has ever been published in English. This book offers a significant revaluation of Clouzot's achievement, situating his career in the wider context of French cinema and society, and providing detailed and clear analysis of his major films (Le Corbeau, Quai des Orfèvres, Le Salaire de la peur, Les Diaboliques, Le Mystère Picasso). Clouzot's films combine meticulous technical control with sardonic social commentary and the ability to engage and entertain a broad public. Although his films are characterised by an all-controlling perfectionism, allied to documentary veracity and a disturbing bleakness of vision, Clouzot is well aware that his is an art of illusion. His fondness for anatomising social pretence, the deception, violence and cruelty practised by individuals and institutions, drew him repeatedly to the thriller as a convenient and compelling model for plots and characters, but his source texts and the usual conventions of the genre receive distinctly unconventional treatment.

      • Trusted Partner
        Individual film directors, film-makers
        July 2012

        Henri-Georges Clouzot

        by Christopher Lloyd

        Despite his controversial reputation and international notoriety as a film-maker, no full-length study of Clouzot has ever been published in English. This book offers a significant revaluation of Clouzot's achievement, situating his career in the wider context of French cinema and society, and providing detailed and clear analysis of his major films (Le Corbeau, Quai des Orfèvres, Le Salaire de la peur, Les Diaboliques, Le Mystère Picasso). Clouzot's films combine meticulous technical control with sardonic social commentary and the ability to engage and entertain a broad public. Although his films are characterised by an all-controlling perfectionism, allied to documentary veracity and a disturbing bleakness of vision, Clouzot is well aware that his is an art of illusion. His fondness for anatomising social pretence, the deception, violence and cruelty practised by individuals and institutions, drew him repeatedly to the thriller as a convenient and compelling model for plots and characters, but his source texts and the usual conventions of the genre receive distinctly unconventional treatment.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        April 2007

        Henri-Georges Clouzot

        by Christopher Lloyd, Diana Holmes, Robert Ingram

        Despite his controversial reputation and international notoriety as a film-maker, no full-length study of Clouzot has ever been published in English. This book offers a significant revaluation of Clouzot's achievement, situating his career in the wider context of French cinema and society, and providing detailed and clear analysis of his major films (Le Corbeau, Quai des Orfèvres, Le Salaire de la peur, Les Diaboliques, Le Mystère Picasso). Clouzot's films combine meticulous technical control with sardonic social commentary and the ability to engage and entertain a broad public. Although his films are characterised by an all-controlling perfectionism, allied to documentary veracity and a disturbing bleakness of vision, Clouzot is well aware that his is an art of illusion. His fondness for anatomising social pretence, the deception, violence and cruelty practised by individuals and institutions, drew him repeatedly to the thriller as a convenient and compelling model for plots and characters, but his source texts and the usual conventions of the genre receive distinctly unconventional treatment. ;

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