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Further Reading

Book Chapters:

Chapter 1

B. Austin, Immediate Seating: A Look at Movie Audiences, (Wadsworth Publishing Company, Belmont, California, 1989)

T. Balio (ed.), The American Film Industry, (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1976)

T. Balio (ed.), Hollywood in the Age of Television, (Unwin Hyman, Boston, 1990)

I. Bernstein, Hollywood at the Crossroads: An Economic Study of the Motion Picture Industry, (Hollywood Film Council, L.A., 1957)

D. Bordwell, J. Staiger and K. Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema, (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1985)

D. Docherty, D. Morrison and M. Tracey, The Last Picture Show ?, (British Film Institute, London, 1987)

E.J. Epstein, The Big Picture, (Random House, New York, 2005)

D. Gomery, The Hollywood Studio System: A History, (BFI, London, 2005)

D. Gomery, Shared Pleasures, (British Film Institute, London, 1992)

S. Greenwald & P. Landry, This Business of Film (Lone Eagle, NY, 2009)

L. Handel, Hollywood Looks at its Audience, (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1950)

G. Jowett & J. Linton, Movies as Mass Communication, (Sage Publications, Newbury Park, California, 1989)

N. Kent, Naked Hollywood, (BBC Books, London, 1991)

D. Landau (ed.), Gladiator: The Making of the Ridley Scott Epic (Boxtree, London, 2000)

G. Merritt, Celluloid Mavericks (Thunder's Mouth Press, NYC, 2000)

N. Roddick, A New Deal in Entertainment, (British Film Institute, London, 1983)

Chapter 2

Allen, R. and Gomery, D., Film History—Theory and Practice, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985. This text presents a foundational overview of historical and critical approaches to cinema.

Belton, J. “1950s Magnetic Sound: The Frozen Revolution”, in Rick Altman (ed.), Sound Theory Sound Practice, New York: Routledge, 1992. A key article on the rise and stall of magnetic sound.

Belton, J. “Digital Cinema: A False Revolution”, in Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen (eds.), Film Theory and Criticism, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. A critical consideration of the often over used term “revolution” in relation to new technology.

Belton, J., Widescreen Cinema, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Blake, L. (ed.), Film Sound Today, Hollywood: Reveille Press, 1984. Historical overview of sound processes.

Holman, T., 5.1 Surround Sound—Up and Running, Los Angeles: Focal Press, 2000. Written by the scientist of film sound.

Jenkins, H., Convergence Culture—Where Old and New Media Collide, New York: New York University Press, 2006.

King, G., “Spectacle, Narrative and the Spectacular Hollywood Blockbuster”, in Julian Stringer (ed.), Movie Blockbuster, London: Routledge, 2003. Critical review of major considerations of film in the blockbuster era.

Kunkes, M., “Sound Trek—The Audio Explorations of Ben Burtt”, in Editors Guild Magazine, V.30, N.3, 2009. http://www.editorsguild.com/Magazine.cfm?ArticleID=721 (accessed September 3, 2010). Interview with the sound designer from the Star Wars, and now the new Star Trek film.

Pierson, M., “Welcome to Basementwood: Computer Generated Special Effects and Wired Magazine”, in Postmodern Culture, 8.3, 1998. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/v008/8.3pierson.html (accessed March4, 2009).

Pierson, M., Special Effects—Still in Search of Wonder, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. A critical analysis of how popular science magazines have defined our understanding of film technology

Schatz, T., “The New Hollywood,” in Jim Collins, Hilary Radner, and Ava Preacher Collins (eds.), Film Theory Goes to the Movies, New York: Routledge, 1993

Taub, Eric. “Digital Projection of Films is Coming. Now, Who Pays?” in The New York Times, Media and Advertising, October 13, 2003 www.nytimes.com/10/13/business/media/13projector.html?pagewanted=1 (accessed August 28, 2010)

Whittington, W., Sound Design and Science Fiction, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007. An overview of the rise of sound design in the era of multichannel technology

Zone, Ray, Stereoscopic Cinema & the Origins of 3-D Film, University Press of Kentucky, 2007

Chapter 3

The following are the books that have most directly informed this chapter. None of them give up their ideas easily and you may well find that thinking through the ideas raised in this chapter by reference to films that you know and are fascinated by is the best way of developing your understanding, before turning to these books at a later stage.

Bazin, Andre, What is Cinema Vol.1 & 2, (ed. What is Cinema, Volumes 1 & 2, (ed. Hugh Grey), Berkeley, University of California, 1971

Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema 1: The Movement-Image (Athlone Press, London, 1992)

Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema 2: The Time-Image (Athlone Press, London, 1989)

Mulvey, Laura, Death 24x a Second (Reaktion, London, 2006)

Perez, Gilberto, The Material Ghos: Films and their Medium (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1998)

Rancière, Jacques, Film Fables (Berg, Oxford, 2006)

Chapter 4

Bordwell, David, Narration in the Fiction Film (Routledge, London, 1997; originally published Methuen, London, 1985)

Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin, Film Art: An Introduction, 7th edition (McGraw-Hill, Boston and London, 2004)

Bordwell, David, Staiger, Jenet and Thompson, Kristin, The Classical Hollywood Cinema (Routledge, London, 1985; reprinted 1994)

Chatman, Seymour, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Cornell University Press, Ithica, NY, 1980)

Dyer, Richard, Heavenly Bodies, 2nd edition (Routledge, London, 2004)

Maltby, Richard, Hollywood Cinema (Blackwell, London, 1995)

Monaco, James, How To Read a Film, 3rd edition (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000)

Neupert, Richard, The End: Narration and Closure in the Cinema (Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1995)

Smith, Murray, Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion and the Cinema (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995)

 

Chapter 5

Overview of shifts in film studies/film theory

To track the shift from ‘subject-apparatus’ approaches, through American pragmatism/cognitivism, to cultural studies perspectives, these three books provide a chronological map:

Bordwell, David and Carroll, Noel, Post-theory: Reconstructing Film Studies (University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1996)

Gledhill, Christine and Williams, Linda (eds), Reinventing Film Studies, Arnold, London, 2000.
Lapsley, R. and Westlake, M., Film Theory: An Introduction (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1988)

Spectatorship and film

The following are accessible, with Judith Mayne’s the most useful summary of the area:

Ellis, John, Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television and Video (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1982; repr. 1992)

Mayne, Judith, Cinema and Spectatorship (Routledge, London, 1993)

Phillips, Patrick, Understanding Film Texts, British Film Institute, London, 2000

Stacey, Jackie, Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship (Routledge, London, 1993)

Turner, Graeme, Film as Social Practice (Routledge, London, 1988; repr. Routledge, London, 1993)

The following are more demanding:

Shaviro, Steven, The Cinematic Body (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1993)

Smith, Murray, Engaging Characters – Fiction, Emotion and the Cinema (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995)

The ideas of Deleuze, particularly important in the shift towards the study of affect, may be found in:

Colebroke, Claire, Gilles Deleuze (Routledge, London, 2002)

The following give a sense of a cognitive approach – through both are quite difficult:

Person, Per, Understanding Cinema: A Psychological Theory of Moving Imagery, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003)

Plantinga, Carl and Smith, Greg. M (eds), Passionate Views: Film Cognition and Emotion (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1999)

On Early Cinema and the development of spectatorship

The first two volumes of the University of California History of the American Cinema series are particularly useful:

Bowser, Eileen, The Transformation of Cinema 1907–1915, University of California, Berkeley, 1994.
Musser, Charles, The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 (University of California, Berkeley, 1994)

The following are also very readable:

May, Larry, Screening Out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry, (Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL, 1980)

Robinson, David, From Peep Show to Palace – The Birth of American Film (Columbia, New York, 1996)

The Silents Majority: On-line Journal of Silent Film; online at http://www.silentsmajority.com

Other books referred to in this chapter include:

Basinger, Jeanine, A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930–1960 (Chatto & Windus, London, 1993)

Hill, Annette, Shocking Entertainment (John Libby, Luton, 1997)

Wollheim, Richard, The Thread of Life, (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1999)

Case studies

Birth of a Nation:

The script and a range of essays are contained in:

Lang, Robert (ed.), D.W. Griffith – Birth of a Nation, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1994.

An educational site with useful links may be found at: http://webster.edu/fatc/birth.html

Pulp Fiction:

Polan, Dana, Pulp Fiction (British Film Institute,London, 2001)

Tarantino, Quentin, Pulp Fiction – The Screenplay (Faber & Faber, London, 1994)

 

Chapter 6

While it is neither possible nor necessary to list them here, there are many books and articles which discuss the work of individual auteurs. As such, most of the works listed below tend to deal with cinematic authorship as a theoretical problem.

Key texts

Caughie, John (ed.) (1981) Theories of Authorship: A Reader (London: Routledge)
Despite its age, Caughie’s book remains a useful resource in terms of both the seminal work it anthologises and his own commentary on that work.

Gerstner, David A. and Staiger, Janet (eds) (2003) Authorship and Film (London: Routledge)
A very useful collection of essays which both contributes to the recent resurgence of interest in authorship studies but also puts forward a number of ways for thinking about issues of agency, identity and politics within auteur analyses.

Keith Grant, Barry (ed.) (2008), Auteurs and Authorship: A Film Reader (Oxford: Blackwell)
A recent collection which combines ‘classic’ works in the field with more contemporary essays which seek to reinvigorate historical debates about film authorship. Its final section offers eleven close readings of films using a variety of auteurist methodologies.

Wright Wexman, Virginia (ed.) (2003) Film and Authorship, New Brunswick (NJ: Rutgers University Press)
This collection anthologises a number of influential works produced since the publication of Caughie’s book. Indeed, the essays span a number of approaches to authorship including post-structuralism, feminism, post-colonialism and cultural studies.

Useful anthologies

Braddock, Jeremy and Hock, Stephen (eds) (2001) Directed by Allen Smithee (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press)

Tasker, Yvonne (ed.) (2011) Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers: Second Edition (London: Routledge)

Useful Compendiums

Allon, Yoram, Cullen, Del and Patterson, Hannah (eds) (2002) Contemporary North American Directors: A Wallflower Critical Guide, 2nd edition (London: Wallflower Press)

Murphy, Robert (ed.) (2006) Directors in British and Irish Cinema: A Reference Guide (London: BFI)

Online reading
Film-Philosophy, Vol. 10, no. 1 (2006), ‘Reanimating the Auteur’ [online at], http://www.film-philosophy.com

Screening The Past, Issue 12 (2001), www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/current/cc0301.html
Two online special issues dedicated to rethinking aspects of cinematic authorship

 

Chapter 7

Introductory texts

McDonald, Paul (2000) The Star System: Hollywood’s Production of Popular Identities (London: Wallflower Press)
This is a relatively short but excellent introduction to the historical emergence and development of the star system in the American film industry.

Selected key works

Dyer, Richard (1998) Stars, 2nd edition (London: BFI)
Since its first publication in 1979, Dyer’s book has been the key critical work in the field of star studies to the extent that it is virtually impossible to find any work since that doesn’t take Stars as its point of departure. The updated edition also features a useful supplementary chapter by Paul McDonald which traces more recent developments in star studies.

It is also worthwhile consulting Dyer’s later book (1987), Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society (London: BFI)

Gledhill, Christine (ed.) (1991) Stardom: Industry of Desire (London: Routledge)
This anthology contains many seminal essays in the field of star studies.

Useful anthologies

Austin, Thomas and Barker, Martin (eds) (2003) Contemporary Hollywood Stardom (London: Arnold)

Fischer, Lucy, and Landy, Marcia (eds), (2004). Stars: The Film Reader (London: Routledge)

Marshall, P. David (ed.), (2006), The Celebrity Culture Reader (London: Routledge)

Redmond, Sean, and Holmes, Su (eds), (2007), Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader (London: Sage)

Willis, Andrew (ed.) (2004) Film Stars: Hollywood and Beyond (Manchester: Manchester University Press)

Online reading

Feasey, Rebecca (2004), ‘Stardom and distinction: Sharon Stone and the problem of legitimacy’, Scope: http://www.nottinghamac.uk/film/scopearchive/articles/stardom-and-distinction.htm

An essay in the online film studies journal Scope, which discusses Sharon Stone.
Grieveson, Lee (2002) ‘Stars and audiences in early American cinema’, Screening the Past, issue 14: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/classics/cl0902/lgcl14c.htm

Perez Hilton, http://perezhilton.com, Perhaps the most famous online source for Hollywood gossip.

 

Chapter 8

Although it is impossible to list them here, there is a multitude of books which address individual genres from a variety of historical and theoretical standpoints. The following works, therefore, represent some of the key attempts to conceptualise genre generally and film genre specifically.

Introductory texts

Frow, John (2005) Genre (London: Routledge)
Part of Routledge’s New Critical Idiom series, Frow’s book serves as an excellent introduction to the notion of genre generally as well as offering some fresh ideas on the ways in which genres actively generate and shape our knowledge of the world.

Keith Grant, Barry (2007) Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology (London: Wallflower Press)
This book forms part of Wallflower Press’ Short Cuts series and, like many of the books in that series, combines an excellent survey of the field as well as introducing some new ideas.

Moine, Raphaëlle, (2008), trans. Alistair Fox and Hilary Radner, Cinema Genre (Oxford: Blackwell)
This is a recent theoretical overview of the topic of genre as practiced in British, American, and French film criticism.

Selected key works

Altman, Rick (1999) Film/Genre (London: BFI)

Langford, Barry (2005) Film Genre: Hollywood and Beyond (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press)

Neale, Steve (1990) Genre (London: BFI)

Neale, Stephen (2000) Genre and Hollywood (London: Routledge)

Useful anthologies

Grant, Barry Keith (ed.) (1986) Film Genre Reader (Austin: University of Texas Press)

Grant, Barry Keith (ed.) (1995) Film Genre Reader II (Austin: University of Texas Press)

Grant, Barry Keith (ed.) (2003) Film Genre Reader III (Austin: University of Texas Press)

Neale, Steve (2002) Genre and Contemporary Hollywood (London: BFI)

Wheeler Winston Dixon (ed.), Film Genre 2000, Albany (NY: State University Press of New York)

 

Chapter 9

Corner, John, The Art of Record (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1996)

Gunning, Tom ‘An Aesthetic of Astonishment: Early Film and the (In)Credulous Spectator’ in L. Williams (ed.) Viewing Positions: Ways of Seeing Film, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1995, pp. 114-133.

Nichols, Bill, Representing Reality (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1991)

Nichols, Bill, Blurred Boundaries (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1994)

Paget, Derek, True Stories? Documentary Drama on Radio, Screen and Stage (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1990)

Plantinga, Carl, Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997)

Rosenthal, Alan and Corner, John (eds), New Challenges for Documentary, 2nd edition (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2005)

Ward, Paul, ‘Drama-documentary, Ethics and Notions of Performance: The “Flight 93” Films’ in T. Austin and W. de Jong (eds.) Re-Thinking Documentary: New Perspectives, New Practices, Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press, 2008, pp. 191-203

Winston, Brian, Claiming the Real (BFI, London, 1995)

 

Chapter 10

Barrier, M., Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in the Golden Age (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)

Beck, J., Animation Art (London: Flame Tree Publishing, 2004)

Bell, E., Haas L. and Sells, L. (eds), From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender and Culture (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995)

Coyle, R., Drawn to Sound: Animation, Film Music and Sonicity (London : Equinox, 2010)

Crafton, D., Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898–1928 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993)

Furniss, M., Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics (London and Montrouge: John Libbey, 1998)

Furniss, M., The Animation Bible (London : Lawrence King Publishers; 2008)

Halas, V. & Wells, P. Halas & Batchelor Cartoons : An Animated History (London : Southbank Publishing, 2006)

Klein, N., 7 Minutes (London: Verso, 1993)

Leslie, E., Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant Garde (London: Verso, 2002)

Manovich, L., The Language of New Media (Massachusetts: MIT, 2002)

Osmond, A., 100 Animated Feature Films (London : BFI, 2010)

Patten, F. Watching Anime, Reading Manga (Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2004)

Paik, K. To Infinity and Beyond ! : The Story of Pixar Animation Studios (London : Virgin, 2007)

Pilling, J. (ed.), Women and Animation: A Compendium (London: BFI, 1992)

Rubin, M., Droidmaker : George Lucas and the Digital Revolution, Gainesville (Florida : Triad, 2006)

Russett, R. and Starr, C., Experimental Animation (New York: Da Capo, 1976)

Selby, A., Animation in Process (London : Lawrence King Publishers, 2010)

Telotte, J.P. Animating Space : From Mickey to WALL-E (Kentucky : University of Kentucky Press, 2010)

Wasko, J., Understanding Disney (Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press, 2001)

Wellins, M. Storytelling Through Animation (Hingham, MA: Charles Rive Media Inc, 2005)

Wells, P., Understanding Animation (London and New York: Routledge 1998)

Wells, P., Animation: Genre and Authorship (London: Wallflower Press, 2002)

Wells, P., Fundamentals of Animation (Lausanne: AVA, 2006)

Wells, P. & Hardstaff, J., Re-Imagining Animation : The Changing Face of the Moving Image, (Lausanne : AVA, 2008)

Wells, P., The Animated Bestiary : Animals, Culture, Cartoons (New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, 2009)

 

Chapter 11

Berger, J., Ways of Seeing (Penguin, London, 1972)
Although now old, this is still a very useful introduction to the visual image

Betterton, R., Looking On: Images of Femininity in the Visual Arts and the Media (Pandora, London, 1987)

Brundsen, C. (ed.), Films for Women (British Film Institute, London, 1986)
This book discusses a range of feminist films such as A Question of Silence (1982) directed by Marlene Gorris

Bruzzi, S., Undressing Cinema (Routledge, London, 1997)
An insightful look at dress in film with a focus on gender

Bruzzi, S., Bringing up Dadd : fatherhood and masculinityin post war Hollywood (BFI, London, 2005)

Clover, C., Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (BFI, London, 1992)
An original and fascinating analysis of how we watch and understand horror film

Cohan, S. and Hark, I. (eds), Screening the Male (Routledge, London, 1993)
One of the first edited volumes to discuss masculinity and film. It contains many important articles which are well worth reading

Cook, P. and Dodd, P. (eds), Women and Film: A Sight and Sound Reader (BFI and Scarlet Press, London, 1993)

Deuber-Mankowsky, A., Lara Croft–Cyber Heroine (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2005)
Insightful discussion of computer games and film and gender

Easthope, A., What a Man’s Gotta Do: The Masculine Myth in Popular Culture (Unwin Hyman, Winchester, 1990)
A good introduction to masculinity and myth

Francke, L., Script Girls (British Film Institute, London, 1994)
This book discusses women who have worked as scriptwriters in the film industry, particularly Hollywood

Hendrickson, N., ‘What Happened to All the Women?’, Creative Screenwriter, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 64–8

Hooks, Bell, Reel to Real: Race, Class and Sex in the Movies (Routledge, New York, 1996)
Well-written, insightful film readings of, among others, Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It (1985), Crooklyn (1991), and Waiting to Exhale (1995), directed by Forest Whitaker

Horrocks, R., Male Myths and Icons: Masculinity in Popular Culture (Macmillan, London, 1995)
A good discussion of masculinity

Inness, S., Tough Girls, Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1999)
A great discussion of tough women in the media

Kaplan, E.A. (ed.), Feminism and Film (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000)

Kirkham, P. and Thumin, J. (eds), You Tarzan: Masculinity, Movies and Men (Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1993)
A good range of articles on issues of masculinity and film

— (eds), Me Jane: Masculinity, Movies and Women (Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1995)
A wide range of articles on issues regarding masculinity, femininity and film.

MacKinnon, K., Representing Men (Arnold, London, 2003)

Modleski, T., The Women Who Knew Too Much (Methuen, London, 1988)
A very accessible and original analysis of Hitchcock’s films

Pilling, J. (ed.), Women and Animation: A Compendium (British Film Institute, London, 1992)

Potter, S., www.yesthemovie.com, pp. 1–4

Segal, M., Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men (Virago, London, 1997)
This book has a very useful and approachable discussion of masculinity in its introduction

Spicer, A., Typical Men, (I.B. Tauris, London, 2001)

Tasker, Y., Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Movie (Routledge, London, 1993)

Tasker, Y., Working Girls (Routledge, London, 1998)

Tasker, Y., (ed.) The Action and Advenure Cinema (Routledge, London, 2004)

Thornham, S., Passionate Detachments (Arnold, London, 1997)

Van Zoonen, L., Feminist Media Studies (Sage, London, 1994)
A good introduction to issues regarding feminism in the media

Willis, S., High Contrast: Race and Gender in Contemporary Hollywood Film (Duke University Press, Durham and London, 1997)

Periodicals are extremely useful to refer to for further reading; they tend to be more topical and ‘up to date’. Look out for articles on women and film in the following: Feminist Review, Women: A Cultural Review, Screen and Sight and Sound.

 

Chapter 12

Aaron, M. (Ed) New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2004)
Helpful writings on context, Haynes and Araki as auteurs, lesbian perspectives, black queer cinema, nationality in relation to Australia, third cinema, art cinema, reception and spectatorship.  The volume deals with a range of popular features from “The Talented Mr Ripley” (Anthony Mingella, US 1999) to “Mansfield Park” (Patricia Rozema, UK 1999).

Alderson,David and Anderson,Linda (Ed)  Territories of Desire in Queer Culture  (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2000)
An excellent summary in the introduction of the current debates about queer culture.  A challenging essay on Jarman, and explorations of Spanish and Australian gay cinema.  With an erudite historical overview, Jonathan Dollimore’s concluding survey points the way to possible future developments.

Benshoff, H. and Griffin, S. (Eds)  Queer Cinema: The Film Reader  (Routledge, New York and London, 2004)
Crucial texts by Jack Babuscio on “Camp and Gay Sensibility” and B. Ruby Rich on “The New Queer Cinema”.  Leading critics such as Dyer, Weiss, Doty and Waugh examine authorship, genre, reception and spectatorship. All students should read its superb introduction.

Daniel, L. and Jackson, C. (Eds)  The Bent Lens: A World Guide to Gay and Lesbian Film  (Roundhouse Publishing, Northam, 2003)
An excellent reference which is prefaced by useful critical essays on lesbian and gay cinema in Europe, globalisation, nationality, representation and genre.  The introductions to the gay, lesbian and transgender sections are clear and stimulating.  The editors also list all their entries according to three useful categories; genre, which is an unusual approach for this kind of collection, director and nationality. 

Dyer,Richard The Matter Of Images: Essays On  Representation,  (Routledge, London, 1993)
An ideal primer for those starting to explore sexual representation in film.  Dyer illustrates the power and complexity of images across a range of films, including film noir, the seminal British film Victim, and the “sad young man” tradition which fed into the star persona of James Dean and others.  A groundbreaking anthology.  Read also his collection, The Culture of Queers, which contains a selection of his key work on such topics as Fassbinder, Rock Hudson and Film Noir.

Farmer,Brett  Spectacular Passions: Cinema, Fantasy, Gay Male Spectatorships (Duke University Press, Durham NC, 2000)
Farmer closely questions the concepts of gay and queer and proposes a theory of gay spectatorship which aptly blends psychoanalytic ideas of fantasy, identification and pleasure with social notions of performativity.  He then offers fruitful textual explorations based on his theory.  This is an excellent way of coming to terms with the latest debates about essentialism and gay spectatorship. 

Griffiths, Robin (ed)  British Queer Cinema  (Routledge, London/New York, 2006)
This volume has a perceptive introduction on what Griffiths calls the 'globalisation' of Queer theory and its cultural effects, along with a useful assessment of the emergence of 'Queer Film Studies'. Ros Jennings' chapter on 'Beautiful produces insights into how the film's range of realist characters 'can be seen to playfully dispute heterosexual stability'. Among other contributions there is productive discussion on the use of setting in 'Maurice' and 'Get Real', and a perceptive exploration of the production context of Jarman's 'Edward II' by Raymond Armstrong.

Holmlund, Chris and Fuchs, Cynthia  Between the Sheets, In the Streets: Queer, Lesbian and Gay Documentary  (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis,1997)
Primarily US-centred, but an extremely fruitful exploration of the nature, form and address of documentary. 

Mulvey, Laura ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, in The Sexual Subject: A Screen Reader in Sexualtity (Rouledge, London and New York, 1995)
This must be read as the seminal first step, a work that helped give voice to the study of gender and sexuality in film.  For more nuanced explorations relevant to this chapter, see Jackie Stacey’s key essay, Desperately Seeking Difference, in the same volume, and Farmer (2000).

Wilton, T. (Ed) Immortal, Invisible: Lesbians and the Moving Image  (Routledge, London, 1995)
Wilton’s introduction and chapter ‘On Not Being Lady Macbeth’ are seminal in setting out the critical parameters on lesbian spectatorship and heterosexual ideology, and should be read by all students of film.  This volume contains Julia Knight’s essay on how Monica Treut seeks to transcend the category of lesbian and contains a set of insights applicable to a range of queer directors.  It is also noteworthy for its textual explorations of camp and the lesbian semiotics of the ‘Alien’ films.

Queer Film Classics - helpful monographs for students

This is a useful imprint from Canadian publishers Arsenal Pulp Press, based in Vancouver, and looks set to provide some illuminating and fascinating views for students on a range of queer films. The volumes are slim and concisely written with useful notes and illustrations. The series editors are Professor Thomas Waugh, a well known film academic some of whose writings are in the textbook bibliography, and Matthew Hays, a well-known author and queer film critic.

2009 saw the publication of "Gods and Monsters" written by Noah Tsika, and in 2010 the range of the imprint was well demonstrated with books on the Chinese epic romance "Farewell My Concubine" (China, Chen Kaige, 1992), the Indian lesbian romance "Fire" (India, Deepa Mehta, 1996) and "Montreal Main" (Canada, Frank Vitale, 1974).

William Haines - a gay star

Haines was a top-five box office star in Hollywood from 1928 to 1932 (eg Show People, US, 1928). He was openly gay, and lived with Jimmie Shields until his death in 1973. Film star Joan Crawford once described them as 'the happiest married couple in Hollywood'. In 1933 his studio, MGM, demanded that he decide between a sham studio-arranged marriage or his relationship with Shields. He chose Shields and they set up business together as designers who produced notable work still exhibited today. See Wikipedia and the biography Wisecracker by William Mann (Penguin books 1999).

Chapter 13

Alexander, E., ‘ “Can You Be BLACK and Look at This?”: Reading the Rodney King Video(s)’, in The Black Interior, Graywolf Press, St Paul, MN, 2004, pp. 175–205.

Alexander, G., Why We Make Movies: Black Filmmakers Talk About the Magic of Cinema (Harlem Moon, Broadway Books, New York, 2003)

Anderson, B., Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London, 1983, pp. 41–64.

Baldwin, J., The Devil Finds Work (Dial Press, New York, 1976)
Personal account of the novelist’s outings to the cinema when he was a child and stream-of-consciousness musings on film generally.

Bhabha, H.K., The Location of Culture (Routledge, London and New York, 1994)

Billops, C., Griffin, A. and Smith, V., Black Film Issue, Black American Literature Forum, 1991, 25: 2.

Bobo, J. (ed.), Black Women Film & Video Artists (Routledge, New York, 1998)

Bogle, D., Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films (Continuum, New York, 1998)

Bowser, P., Gaines, J. and Musser C. (eds), Oscar Micheaux and His Circle (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2001)

Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies, The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain (Hutchinson, in association with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, London, 1982)

Cham, M.B., Ex-iles: Essays on Caribbean Cinema (Africa World Press, Trenton, New Jersey, 1992)

Cooper, C., ‘Slackness Hiding from Culture: Erotic Play in the Dancehall’, in Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender, and the ‘Vulgar’ Body of Jamaican Popular Culture (Duke University Press, Durham, 1995)

Cripps, T., Black Film as Genre (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1978)

Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900–1942, end edition (Oxford University Press, New York, 1993a)

  • Making Movies Black: The Hollywood Message Movie from World War II to the Civil Rights Era, (Oxford University Press, New York, 1993b)

 

Dash, J. Daughters of the Dust: The Making of an African American Woman's Film (New Press, New York, 1992)

Diawara, M. (ed.), Black American Cinema (Routledge, New York, 1993)

Dyer, R., White (Routledge, London, 1997)

Ellison, R., Shadow and Act, Vintage International, New York, 1964. Collection of cultural essays including a title essay on African American spectatorship

Gaines, J., ‘White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory’, in S. Thornham (ed. and intro.), Feminist Film Theory: A Reader (New York University Press, New York, 1988)

Gates, H.L. Jr., ‘New Negroes, Migration, and Cultural Exchange’, in Elizabeth Hutton Turner (ed.), Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series, (Washington, DC, Rappahannock, 1993)

Guerrero, E., Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film, (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1993)

hooks, b., Black Looks: Race and Representation ( South End Press, Boston, MA, 1992)

Reel to Real: Race, Sex and Class at the Movies (Routledge, New York, 1996)

Hurston, Z.N., ‘What White Publishers Won’t Print’, in A. Walker (ed.), I Love Myself When I’m Laughing, The Feminist Press, New York, 1979, pp. 169–173

Julien, I., ‘Black Is, Black Ain’t: Notes on De-Essentializing Black Identities’, in G. Dent (ed.), Black Popular Culture (Bay Press, Seattle, 1992)

Lanier-Seward, A., ‘A Film Portrait of Black Ritual Expression: The Blood of Jesus’, in G. Gay and W.L. Baber (eds), Expressively Black: The Cultural Basis of Ethnic Identity (Praeger, New York, 1987)

Larkin, B. Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure and Urban Culture in Nigeria (Duke University Press, Durham, 2008)

Lee, S., Spike Lee’s Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking, Fireside, New York, 1987. Filmmaker’s account of writing and bringing his debut feature to the screen and establishing his production company 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks.

Lee, S. and Jones, L., Do the Right Thing (Fireside, New York, 1989)

Lubiano, W., ‘But Compared to What? Reading Realism, Representation and Essentialism in School Daze, Do the Right Thing, and the Spike Lee Discourse’, Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 25 No. 2 (Summer 1991), 253–81

Martin, M. (ed.), Cinemas of the Black Diaspora: Diversity, Dependence and Oppositionality (Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1995)

Massood, P.J., Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in Film (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2003)

Morrison, T., Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992)
Pines, J. and Willemen, P. (eds), Questions of Third Cinema (BFI, London, 1989)

Reid, M., Redefining Black Film (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1993)

Rhines, J., Black Film/White Money (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1996)

Rony, F.T., The Third Eye: Race, Cinema and Ethnographic Spectacle, (Duke University Press, Durham, 1996)
Analysis of race-and-gender constructions in motion pictures, around questions of ethnography and visual anthropology. Covers the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Sampson, H.T., Blacks in Black and White, 2nd edition (Scarecrow, Metuchen, NJ, 1995)

Shohat, E. and Stam, R., Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (Routledge, New York, 1994)

Smith, S.M., Photography on the Color Line: W.E.B. Du Bois, Race and Visual Culture (Duke University Press, Durham, 2004)

Smith, V. (ed.), Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1997)

Snead, J., ‘Images of Blacks in Black Independent Films: A Brief Survey’, in M.B. Cham and C. Andrade-Watkins (eds), Blackframes: Critical Perspectives on Black Independent Cinema, Cambridge, MA, Celebration of Black Cinema, MIT Press, 1988, pp. 16–25

Snead, J., White Screens, Black Images: Hollywood from the Dark Side, ed. C. McCabe and C. West (Routledge, New York, 1994)

Stewart, J. N., Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2005)

Wallace, M., Dark Designs and Visual Culture (Duke University Press, Durham, 2004)
Anthology of the author’s essays on film, art, travel and television published over the last forty years.

Warner, K., On Location: Cinema and Film in the Anglophone Caribbean (Macmillan Education, London, 2000)

Yearwood, G., Black Film as a Signifying Practice: Cinema, Narration and the African American Aesthetic Tradition (Africa World Press, Trenton, 2000)

 

Chapter 15

Barnouw, E. and Krishnaswamy, S., Indian Film, 2nd edition (Oxford University Press, New York, 1980)

Chatterji, Gayatri, Mother India, (BFI Classics, BFI, London, 2002)

Chatterji, Shoma, Parama and Other Outsiders: The Cinema of Aparna Sen (Parumita Publications, Calcutta, 2002)

Chopra, Anupama, Sholay: The Making of a Classic (Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 2000)

Chopra, Anupama, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, (BFI Modern Classics, BFI, London, 2002)

Datta, Sangeeta, Shyam Benegal (World Directors, BFI, London, 2002)

Desai, Jigna, Beyond Bollywood: The Cultural Politics of South Asian Diasporic Film (Routledge, New York and London, 2004)

Dwyer, Rachel, 100 Bollywood Films (BFI Screen Guides, BFI, London, 2005)

Ganti, Tejaswini, Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema (Routledge, New York and London, 2004)

Gopal, Sangita and Sujata Moorti, eds.  Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2008)

Iyer, P., Video Night in Kathmandu: Reports from the Not-So-Far East (Knopf, New York, 1988)

Kabir, Nasreen Munni, Bollywood: The Indian Cinema Story (Channel 4 Books, London, 2001)

Mishra, Vijay, Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire (Routledge, New York and London, 2002)

Pendakur, Manjunath, Indian Popular Cinema: Industry, Ideology, and Consciousness (Hampton Press, Cresshill, NJ, 2003)

Rai, Amit S., Untimely Hollywood: Globalization and India’s New Media Assemblage (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2009)

Rajadhyaksha, Ashish and Willeman, Paul (eds), Encylopaedia of Indian Cinema, 2nd edition (British Film Institute, London, 1999)

Rajagopalan, Sudha, Indian films in Soviet cinema: the culture of movie-going after Stalin (Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana Univ. Press, 2008)

Thoraval, Yves, The Cinemas of India (Macmillan India, New Delhi, 2000)

Virdi, Jyotika, The Cinematic Imagination: Indian Popular Films as Social History (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 2003)

  • The following periodicals are also useful for those interested in the field.
  • Cinemaya
  • Deep Focus
  • Filmfare
  • Lensight
  • Stardust

 

Chapter 16

Armes, R. (1987)Third World Filmmaking and the West, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Barnard, T. (1986) Argentine Cinema, Toronto: Nightwood. 

Chanan, M. (2006) ‘Latin American cinema: from underdevelopment to postmodernism’, in Dennison, S. and Hwee Lim, S. (eds) Remapping World Cinema: identity, politics and culture in film, London: Wallflower.

Cozarinsky, E. (1988) Borges in/and/on Film, trans. Gloria Waldman and Ronald Crist, New York: Lumen.

García G. ‘Melodrama: The Passion Machine’ in Paranaguá, P. M. (ed.) (1995) Mexican Cinema, London: BFI.

Haddu, M. and Page, J. (eds) (2009) Visual Synergies in Fiction and Documentary Film From Latin America, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hart, S. (2004) A Companion to Latin American Film, Woodbridge: Tamesis.

King, J. and N.Torrents (eds) (1987) The Garden of Forking Paths: Argentine Cinema, London: BFI.

---- , López, A.M. and Alvarado, M. (1993) Mediating Two Worlds: Cinematic Encounters in the Americas, London: BFI.

López, A.M. ‘The Melodrama in Latin America: Films, Telenovelas and the Currency of a Popular Form’, Wide Angle, Vol. 7, 3, 1985, 5-13.

---- , ‘Early Cinema and Modernity in Latin America’, Cinema Journal, 40, No. 1, Fall 2000, 48-78.

Martin, M.T. (ed.) (1997) New Latin American Cinema Volume One: Theory, Practices, and Transcontinental Articulations, Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Martin, M.T. (ed.) (1997)New Latin American Cinema Volume Two: Studies of National Cinemas, Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Matheou, D.  (2010) The Faber Book of New South American Cinema, London: Faber and Faber.

Nagib, L. (2007) Brazil on Screen: Cinema Novo, New Cinema, Utopia, London: I.B. Tauris.

Pick, Z. (1993) The New Latin American Cinema: A Continental Project, Austin: University of Texas Press.

Shaw, L. and Dennison, S. (2005) Latin American Cinema: Essays on Modernity, Gender and National Identity, Jefferson and London: McFarland and Co.

Shaw L. (2007) ‘Afro-Brazilian Identity: Malandragem and Homosexuality in Madame Satã’ in Shaw. D. (ed.) (2007) Contemporary Latin American Cinema: Breaking into the Global Market, Lanham andPlymouth: Rowman and Littlefield.

Stam, R. (1998) ‘The Two Avant-gardes: Solanas and Getino’s The Hour of the Furnaces’ in Grant, B.K. and Sloniowski, J. Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Films and Video, Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Stock, A. M. (ed.) (1996) Framing Latin American Cinema: Contemporary Critical Perspectives, London: Minnesota University Press.

Tierney, D. (2007) Emilio Fernández: Pictures in the Margins, Manchester University Press.

Chapter 17

Aumont, J. (1987) Montage Eisenstein, London: British Film Institute

Barna. Y. (1973) Eisenstein, London: Secker & Warburg

Barron, S. & Tuchmann, M. (eds.) (1980) The Avant-Garde in Russia, 1910–1930: New Perspectives, Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Beumers, B. (ed.) (2007) The Cinema of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, London: Wallflower Press

Bordwell, D. (1993) The Cinema of Eisenstein, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Christie, I. & Gillett, J. (eds.) (1978) Futurism/Formalism/FEKS: ‘Eccentrism’ and Soviet Cinema 1918–1936, London: BFI

Christie, I. & Graffy, J. (eds.) (1993) Yakov Protazanov and the Continuity of Russian Cinema, London: BFI/NFT

Christie, I. & Taylor, R. (eds.) (1993) Eisenstein Rediscovered, London: Routledge

Dickinson, T. & de la Roche, C. (1948) Soviet Cinema, London: Falcon Press

Eisenstein, S. (1970) Notes of a Film Director, New York, NY: Dover Publications

Eisenstein, S. (1986) The Film Sense, London: Faber and Faber

Gillespie, D. (2003) Russian Cinema, Harlow: Longman

Glenny, M. & Taylor, R. (eds.) (1994) S.M. Eisenstein: Towards a Theory of Montage – Selected Works Vol. 2, London: BFI

Goodwin, J. (1993) Eisenstein, Cinema and History, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press

Kenez, P. (1992) Cinema and Soviet Society 1917–1953, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Kepley, V., Jr. (1986) In the Service of the State: The Cinema of Alexander Dovzhenko, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press

LaValley, A. & Scherr, B. (eds.) (2001) Eisenstein at 100: A Reconsideration, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press

Lawton, A. (ed.) (1992) The Red Screen: Politics, Society, Art in Soviet Cinema, London: Routledge

Leyda, J. (1983) Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film (3rd edn), London: George Allen & Unwin

Marshall, H. (1983) Masters of the Soviet Cinema, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Michelson, A. (ed.) (1984) Kino Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press

Petrić, V. (1993) Constructivism in Film: The Man with the Movie Camera – A Cinematic Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Roberts, G. (1999) Forward Soviet: History and Non-fiction Film in the USSR, London: I.B. Tauris

Sargeant, A. (2000) Vsevolod Pudovkin: Classic Films of the Soviet Avant-Garde, London: I.B. Tauris

Schnitzer, J., Schnitzer, L. & Martin, M. (eds.) (1973) Cinema in Revolution, London: Secker & Warburg

Stites, R. (1992) Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society Since 1900, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Taylor, R. (1979) The Politics of the Soviet Cinema, 1917–1929, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Taylor, R. (1998) Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany (2nd edn), London: I.B. Tauris

Taylor, R. (ed.) (1988) S.M. Eisenstein: Writings 1922–1934 – Selected Works Vol. 1, London: BFI

Taylor, R. (ed.) (1995) Beyond the Stars: The Memoirs of Sergei Eisenstein – Selected Works Vol. 4, London: BFI

Taylor, R. (ed.) (1998) The Eisenstein Reader, London: BFI

Taylor, R. & Christie, I. (eds.) (1991) Inside the Film Factory: New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema, London: Routledge

Taylor, R. & Christie, I. (eds.) (1994) The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents, 1896–1939, London: Routledge

Taylor, R. & Spring, D. (eds.) (1993) Stalinism and Soviet Cinema, London: Routledge

Tsivian, Y. (1994) Early Cinema in Russia and its Cultural Reception, London: Routledge

Usai, P., Codelli, L., Montanaro, C. & Robinson, D. (eds.) (1989) Silent Witnesses: Russian Films 1908–1919, London: BFI

Youngblood, D. J. (1991) Soviet Cinema in the Silent Era: 1918–1935, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press

Youngblood, D. J. (1992) Movies for the Masses: Popular Cinema and Soviet Society in the 1920s, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Youngblood, D. J. (1999) The Magic Mirror: Movie Making in Russia 1908-1918, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press

Zorkaya, N. (1989) The Illustrated History of Soviet Cinema, New York, NY: Hippocrene Books