Film Studies

The profound cultural and political changes of the 1960s brought the United States closer to social revolution than at any other time in the twentieth century. The country fragmented as various challenges to state power were met with increasing and violent resistance. The Cold War heated up and the Vietnam War divided Americans. Civil rights, women's liberation, and gay rights further emerged as significant social issues. Free love was celebrated even as the decade was marked by assassinations, mass murders, and social unrest. At the same time, American cinema underwent radical change as well. ...

Arranged chronologically, Film Histories is a wide-ranging anthology that covers the history of film from 1885 to the present. Each chapter contains an introduction by the editors on key developments within the respective period, followed by a classic piece of historical research about that period. Various approaches to film history are taken by the authors of the articles, exposing readers to different forms of historical research. ...

From across the world young film-makers emerged from nowhere to challenge the dreary conformity of the 50s and flout the taboos (both sexual and political) of their age. The foot-soldiers in this revolution included Godard, Truffaut, Pasolini and Bertolucci, Oshima and Forman and Polanski and Cassavetes. Peter Cowie was in the thick of this cultural foment, not least when some of these firebrands shut down the Cannes film festival in the heady May of 1969. This title recaptures the cultural mood of the 60s through numerous interviews with key film-making talents of the time.

The history of international cinema is now available in a concise, conveniently sized, and affordable volume. Succinct yet comprehensive, A Short History of Film provides an accessible overview of the major movements, directors, studios, and genres from the 1880s to the present. ...

A World History of Film presents the entire history of motion pictures, from pre-cinema to the present. Providing a complete analysis of the principal films, directors, and national cinemas, it supplies a thorough grounding in the social, economic, and political circumstances critical to an understanding of film as both art and industry. In a highly readable narrative, Robert Sklar covers all significant periods and styles - not only commercial films and classical Hollywood cinema but also animation, documentaries, international art cinema, and the cinematic avant-garde. ...

From the glossy monochrome of the classic Hollywood romance, to the gritty greyscale of the gangster picture, to film noir's moody interplay of light and shadow, black-and-white cinematography has been used to create a remarkably wide array of tones. Yet today, with black-and-white film stock nearly impossible to find, these cinematographic techniques are virtually extinct, and filmgoers' appreciation of them is similarly waning. Black and White Cinema is the first study to consider the use of black-and-white as an art form in its own right, providing a comprehensive and global overview of the era when it flourished, from the 1900s to the 1960s.

A fascinating look at one of the most experimental, volatile, and influential decades, Film, Fashion, and the 1960s, examines the numerous ways in which film and fashion intersected and affected identity expression during the era. ...

This comprehensive filmography provides critical analyses and behind-the-scenes stories for 600 horror, science fiction and fantasy films from the 1960s. During those tumultuous years horror cinema flourished, proving as innovative and unpredictable as the decade itself. Representative titles include Night of the Living Dead, The Haunting, Carnival of Souls, Repulsion, The Masque of the Red Death, Targets and The Conqueror Worm. An historical overview chronicles the explosive growth of horror films during this era, as well as the emergence of such dynamic directorial talents as Roman Polanski, George Romero, Francis Ford Coppola and Peter Bogdanovich.

From 1939, when World War II started in Europe, to 1975, when the mega-success of the blockbuster Jaws put an end to what we might call the American “New Wave,” the US film industry traveled through precipitous peaks and valleys. During the war years Hollywood joined the fight: cooperating with government, raising morale, and selling war bonds.

American independent cinema, often called “indie cinema,” has no clear historical starting point and no single definition. Most broadly, the term refers to films made outside the Hollywood system, although some scholars date independent cinema from 1908, when enterprising filmmakers defied the near-monopoly of the Motion Picture Patents Company, formed by Thomas A. Edison and others hoping to control the rapidly expanding industry. ...