Spectacular Narratives

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Spectacular Narratives

Geoff King
Spectacular Narratives Book PDF

Author : Geoff King
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2000-11-24
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780857716972

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Spectacular Narratives by Geoff King Pdf

What is the appeal of the contemporary Hollywood blockbuster? The sheer scale and impact of big special effects sequences is part of the attraction of films such as Independence Day, Jurassic Park, Titanic or Mission Impossible. But they also offer other appeals, including the dynamics of narrative. Spectacular Narratives is the first serious book-length treatment of the contemporary blockbuster, including the digital-effects-based spectacle, space fictions, the action film, war spectaculars, the recent wave of disaster movies and films evoking new technologies such as virtual reality. Consideration is also given to the impact of profitable spin-offs such as film-related theme park rides and computer games. Geoff King argues against the view that an emphasis on the spectacular has led to an erosion of the importance of narrative in Hollywood. Instead, he suggests, even the most spectacular and effects-led contemporary blockbuster offers a blend of appeals, mixing elements of spectacle and narrative. Narrative is explored at the levels of both linear story-telling and underlying thematic patterns, a particular emphasis being placed on the persistence of elements of the myth/ideology of the American frontier. Close textual analysis is combined with consideration of the industrial and social contexts of contemporary Hollywood in a readable, original and rewarding book on the cinema that dominates markets across the globe.

Spectacular Narratives

Giorgio Mariani
Spectacular Narratives Book PDF

Author : Giorgio Mariani
Publisher : American University Studies
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : STANFORD:36105004095845

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Spectacular Narratives by Giorgio Mariani Pdf

Despite Stephen Crane's great interest in social themes of his time, few critics have analyzed the historical and political significance of his work. This book demonstrates that only an analysis capable of grasping the politics of Crane's texts can adequately account for their stylistic and aesthetic qualities. Focusing on Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and The Red Badge of Courage, as well as on seldom studied bestsellers of the American 1890s such as R.H. Davis's Soldiers of Fortune and F.M. Crawford's Via Crucis, it offers new insights into the formal and ideological relationship of Crane's fiction to popular literature.

Spectacular Narratives

Geoff King
Spectacular Narratives Book PDF

Author : Geoff King
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 213 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Cinematography
ISBN : 0755699319

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Spectacular Narratives by Geoff King Pdf

What makes today's Hollywood films so successful? Is it the sheer scale of special effects that gives films like "Jurassic Park" or "The Matrix" their mass audience appeal? Geoff King looks at the underexplored dynamic relationship between narrative and spectacle in contemporary Hollywood cinema. He uses the myth of the American frontier against a range of Hollywood filmsand drawes examples from the digital-effects-based and virtual-reality spectacles, space fictions, action films, war epics and disaster films that now dominate cinema.

Return of the Epic Film

Andrew Elliot
Return of the Epic Film Book PDF

Author : Andrew Elliot
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2015-03-05
Category : Reference
ISBN : 9781474402859

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Return of the Epic Film by Andrew Elliot Pdf

With the success of Gladiator, both critics and scholars enthusiastically announced the return of a genre which had lain dormant for thirty years. However, this return raises important new questions which remain unanswered. Why did the epic come back, and why did it fall out of fashion? Are these the same kinds of epics as the 1950s and 60s, or are there aesthetic differences? Can we treat Kingdom of Heaven, 300 and Thor indiscriminately as one genre? Are non-Western histories like Hero and Mongol epics, too? Finally, what precisely do we mean when we talk about the return of the epic film, and why are they back? The Return of the Epic Film offers a fresh way of thinking about a body of films which has dominated our screens for a decade. With contributions from top scholars in the field, the collection adopts a range of interdisciplinary perspectives to explore the epic film in the twenty-first century.

The Unpredictability of the Past

Marc Gallicchio
The Unpredictability of the Past Book PDF

Author : Marc Gallicchio
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 349 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2007-08-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9780822390527

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The Unpredictability of the Past by Marc Gallicchio Pdf

In The Unpredictability of the Past, an international group of historians examines how collective memories of the Asia-Pacific War continue to affect relations among China, Japan, and the United States. The contributors are primarily concerned with the history of international relations broadly conceived to encompass not only governments but also nongovernmental groups and organizations that influence the interactions of peoples across the Pacific. Taken together, the essays provide a rich, multifaceted analysis of how the dynamic interplay between past and present is manifest in policymaking, popular culture, public commemorations, and other arenas. The contributors interpret mass media sources, museum displays, monuments, film, and literature, as well as the archival sources traditionally used by historians. They explore how American ideas about Japanese history shaped U.S. occupation policy following Japan’s surrender in 1945, and how memories of the Asia-Pacific War influenced Washington and Tokyo policymakers’ reactions to the postwar rise of Soviet power. They investigate topics from the resurgence of Pearl Harbor images in the U.S. media in the decade before September 11, 2001, to the role of Chinese war museums both within China and in Chinese-Japanese relations, and from the controversy over the Smithsonian Institution’s Enola Gay exhibit to Japanese tourists’ reactions to the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. One contributor traces how a narrative commemorating African Americans’ military service during World War II eclipsed the history of their significant early-twentieth-century appreciation of Japan as an ally in the fight against white supremacy. Another looks at the growing recognition and acknowledgment in both the United States and Japan of the Chinese dimension of World War II. By focusing on how memories of the Asia-Pacific War have been contested, imposed, resisted, distorted, and revised, The Unpredictability of the Past demonstrates the crucial role that interpretations of the past play in the present. Contributors. Marc Gallicchio, Waldo Heinrichs, Haruo Iguchi, Xiaohua Ma, Frank Ninkovich, Emily S. Rosenberg, Takuya Sasaki, Yujin Yaguchi, Daqing Yang

Action, Detection and Shane Black

Nils Bothmann
Action Detection and Shane Black Book PDF

Author : Nils Bothmann
Publisher : Springer
Page : 344 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2018-11-11
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9783658240783

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Action, Detection and Shane Black by Nils Bothmann Pdf

Nils Bothmann applies antiessentialist genre theory to study the fusion of the action and the detection genre in the hybrid genre of detAction, focusing on the work of screenwriter and director Shane Black. After providing antiessentialist definitions of all three genres, the author undertakes close readings of Black’s work in order to analyze depictions of race and gender as well as the role of intermediality and genre hybridity in detAction.​

Narratives of the War on Terror

Michael C. Frank,Pavan Kumar Malreddy
Narratives of the War on Terror Book PDF

Author : Michael C. Frank,Pavan Kumar Malreddy
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2020-09-10
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781000073751

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Narratives of the War on Terror by Michael C. Frank,Pavan Kumar Malreddy Pdf

Challenging the predominantly Euro-American approaches to the field, this volume brings together essays on a wide array of literary, filmic and journalistic responses to the decade-long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shifting the focus from so-called 9/11 literature to narratives of the war on terror, and from the transatlantic world to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, the Afghan-Pak border region, South Waziristan, Al-Andalus and Kenya, the book captures the multiple transnational reverberations of the discourses on terrorism, counter-terrorism and insurgency. These include, but are not restricted to, the realignment of geopolitical power relations; the formation of new terrorist networks (ISIS) and regional alliances (Iraq/Syria); the growing number of terrorist incidents in the West; the changing discourses on security and technologies of warfare; and the leveraging of fundamental constitutional principles. The essays featured in this volume draw upon, and critically engage with, the conceptual trajectories within American literary debates, postcolonial discourse and transatlantic literary criticism. Collectively, they move away from the trauma-centrism and residual US-centrism of early literary responses to 9/11 and the criticism thereon, while responding to postcolonial theory’s call for a historical foregrounding of terrorism, insurgency and armed violence in the colonial-imperial power nexus. This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of English Studies.

Fiction and the Sixth Mass Extinction

Jonathan Elmore
Fiction and the Sixth Mass Extinction Book PDF

Author : Jonathan Elmore
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 179 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2020-04-01
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9781793619204

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Fiction and the Sixth Mass Extinction by Jonathan Elmore Pdf

Fiction and the Sixth Mass Extinction is one of the first works to focus specifically on fiction’s engagements with human driven extinction. Drawing together a diverse group of scholars and approaches, this volume pairs established voices in the field with emerging scholars and traditionally recognized climate fiction ('cli-fi') with texts and media typically not associated with Anthropocene fictions. The result is a volume that both engages with and furthers existing work on Anthropocene fiction as well as laying groundwork for the budding subfield of extinction fiction. This volume takes up the collective insistence on the centrality of story to extinction studies. In various and disparate ways, each chapter engages with the stories we tell about extinction, about the extinction of animal and plant life, and about the extinction of human life itself. Answering the call to action of extinction studies, these chapters explore what kinds of humanity caused this event and what kinds may live through it; what cultural assumptions and values led to this event and which ones could lead out of it; what relationships between human life and this planet allowed the sixth mass extinction and what alternative relationships could be possible.

A Critical Companion to Stanley Kubrick

Elsa Colombani
A Critical Companion to Stanley Kubrick Book PDF

Author : Elsa Colombani
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2020-10-16
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781793613776

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A Critical Companion to Stanley Kubrick by Elsa Colombani Pdf

A Critical Companion to Stanley Kubrick offers a thorough and detailed study of the films of the legendary director. Labeled a recluse, a provocateur, and a perfectionist, Kubrick revolutionized filmmaking, from the use of music in film, narrative pacing and structure, to depictions of war and violence. An unparalleled visionary, his work continues to influence contemporary cinema and visual culture. This book delves into the complexities of his work and examines the wide range of topics and the multiple interpretations that his films inspire. The eighteen chapters in this book use a wide range of methodologies and explore new trends of research in film studies, providing a series of unique and novel perspectives on all of Kubrick’s thirteen feature films, from Fear and Desire (1953) to Eyes Wide Shut (1999), as well as his work on A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001).

Slow Narrative and Nonhuman Materialities

Marco Caracciolo
Slow Narrative and Nonhuman Materialities Book PDF

Author : Marco Caracciolo
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 333 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2022-03
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781496230874

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Slow Narrative and Nonhuman Materialities by Marco Caracciolo Pdf

Slow Narrative and Nonhuman Materialities investigates how the experience of slowness in contemporary narrative practices can create a vision of interconnectedness between human communities and the nonhuman world. Here, slowness is not a matter of measurable time but a transformative experience for audiences of contemporary narratives engaging with the ecological crisis. While climate change is a scientific abstraction, the imagination of slowness turns it into a deeply embodied and affective experience. Marco Caracciolo explores the value of slowness in dialogue with a wide range of narratives in various media, from prose fiction to comic books to video games. He argues that we need patience and an eye for complex patterns in order to recognize the multiple threads that link human communities and the slow-moving processes of climate and geological history. Decelerating attention offers important insight into human societies' relations with the nonhuman materialities of Earth's physical landscapes, ecosystems, and atmosphere. Caracciolo centers the experiential effects of narrative and offers a range of theoretically grounded readings that complement the formal language of narrative theory. These close readings demonstrate that slowness is not a matter of measurable time but a "thickening" of attention that reveals the deeply multithreaded nature of reality. The importance of this realization cannot be overstated: through an investment in the here and now of experience, slow narrative can help us manage the uncertainty of living in an era marked by dramatically shifting climate patterns.

Beyond Narrative

Sebastian M. Herrmann,Katja Kanzler,Stefan Schubert
Beyond Narrative Book PDF

Author : Sebastian M. Herrmann,Katja Kanzler,Stefan Schubert
Publisher : transcript Verlag
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2022-05-31
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783839461303

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Beyond Narrative by Sebastian M. Herrmann,Katja Kanzler,Stefan Schubert Pdf

This book calls for an investigation of the ›borderlands of narrativity‹ — the complex and culturally productive area where the symbolic form of narrative meets other symbolic logics, such as data(base), play, spectacle, or ritual. It opens up a conversation about the ›beyond‹ of narrative, about the myriad constellations in which narrativity interlaces with, rubs against, or morphs into the principles of other forms. To conceptualize these borderlands, the book introduces the notion of »narrative liminality,« which the 16 articles utilize to engage literature, popular culture, digital technology, historical artifacts, and other kinds of texts from a time span of close to 200 years.

Expressive Spaces in Digital 3D Cinema

Owen Weetch
Expressive Spaces in Digital 3D Cinema Book PDF

Author : Owen Weetch
Publisher : Springer
Page : 168 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2016-09-26
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781137542670

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Expressive Spaces in Digital 3D Cinema by Owen Weetch Pdf

This book puts forward a more considered perspective on 3D, which is often seen as a distracting gimmick at odds with artful cinematic storytelling. Owen Weetch looks at how stereography brings added significance and expressivity to individual films that all showcase remarkable uses of the format. Avatar, Gravity, The Hole, The Great Gatsby and Frozen all demonstrate that stereography is a rich and sophisticated process that has the potential to bring extra meaning to a film’s narrative and themes. Through close reading of these five very different examples, Expressive Spaces in Digital 3D Cinema shows how being sensitive to stereographic manipulation can nuance and enrich the critical appreciation of stereoscopic films. It demonstrates that the expressive placement of characters and objects within 3D film worlds can construct meaning in ways that are unavailable to ‘flat’ cinema.

International Cinema and the Girl

Fiona Handyside
International Cinema and the Girl Book PDF

Author : Fiona Handyside
Publisher : Springer
Page : 219 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2016-04-29
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781137388926

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International Cinema and the Girl by Fiona Handyside Pdf

From the precocious charms of Shirley Temple to the box-office behemoth Frozen and its two young female leads, Anna and Elsa, the girl has long been a figure of fascination for cinema. The symbol of (imagined) childhood innocence, the site of intrigue and nostalgia for adults, a metaphor for the precarious nature of subjectivity itself, the girl is caught between infancy and adulthood, between objectification and power. She speaks to many strands of interest for film studies: feminist questions of cinematic representation of female subjects; historical accounts of shifting images of girls and childhood in the cinema; and philosophical engagements with the possibilities for the subject in film. This collection considers the specificity of girls' experiences and their cinematic articulation through a multicultural feminist lens which cuts across the divides of popular/art-house, Western/non Western, and north/south. Drawing on examples from North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, the contributors bring a new understanding of the global/local nature of girlhood and its relation to contemporary phenomena such as post-feminism, neoliberalism and queer subcultures. Containing work by established and emerging scholars, this volume explodes the narrow post-feminist canon and expands existing geographical, ethnic, and historical accounts of cinematic cultures and girlhood.

Post-Classical Hollywood

Barry Langford
Post Classical Hollywood Book PDF

Author : Barry Langford
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2010-08-31
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780748643219

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Post-Classical Hollywood by Barry Langford Pdf

At the end of World War II, Hollywood basked in unprecedented prosperity. Since then, numerous challenges and crises have changed the American film industry in ways beyond imagination in 1945. Nonetheless, at the start of a new century Hollywood's worldwide dominance is intact - indeed, in today's global economy the products of the American entertainment industry (of which movies are now only one part) are more ubiquitous than ever. How does today's "e;Hollywood"e; - absorbed into transnational media conglomerates like NewsCorp., Sony, and Viacom - differ from the legendary studios of Hollywood's Golden Age? What are the dominant frameworks and conventions, the historical contexts and the governing attitudes through which films are made, marketed and consumed today? How have these changed across the last seven decades? And how have these evolving contexts helped shape the form, the style and the content of Hollywood movies, from Singin' in the Rain to Pirates of the Caribbean? Barry Langford explains and interrogates the concept of "e;post-classical"e; Hollywood cinema - its coherence, its historical justification and how it can help or hinder our understanding of Hollywood from the forties to the present. Integrating film history, discussion of movies' social and political dimensions, and analysis of Hollywood's distinctive methods of storytelling, Post-Classical Hollywood charts key critical debates alongside the histories they interpret, while offering its own account of the "e;post-classical."e; Wide-ranging yet concise, challenging and insightful, Post-Classical Hollywood offers a new perspective on the most enduringly fascinating artform of our age.

The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction

S. Halldorson
The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction Book PDF

Author : S. Halldorson
Publisher : Springer
Page : 223 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2007-12-09
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780230609785

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The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction by S. Halldorson Pdf

This book sets out to write nothing short of a new theory of the heroic for today's world. It delves into the "why" of the hero as a natural companion piece to the "how" of the hero as written by Northrop Frye and Joseph Campbell over half a century ago. The novels of Saul Bellow and Don DeLillo serve as an anchor to the theory as it challenges our notions of what is heroic about nymphomaniacs, Holocaust survivors, spurious academics, cult followers, terrorists, celebrities, photographers and writers of novels who all attempt to claim the right to be "hero."