The Biopic In Contemporary Film Culture

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The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture

Author : Tom Brown,Belén Vidal
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 325 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2013-12-17
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781135950309

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The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture by Tom Brown,Belén Vidal Pdf

The biographical film or biopic is a staple of film production in all major film industries and yet, within film studies, its generic, aesthetic, and cultural significance has remained underexplored. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture fills this gap, conceptualizing the biopic with a particular eye toward the "life" of the genre internationally. New theoretical approaches combine with specially commissioned chapters on contemporary biographical film production in India, Italy, South Korea, France, Russia, Great Britain, and the US, in order to present a selective but well-rounded portrait of the biopic’s place in film culture. From Marie Antoinette to The Social Network, the pieces in this volume critically examine the place of the biopic within ongoing debates about how cinema can and should represent history and "real lives." Contributors discuss the biopic’s grounding in the conventions of the historical film, and explore the genre’s defining traits as well as its potential for innovation. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture expands the critical boundaries of this evolving, versatile genre.

The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture

Author : Tom Brown,Belén Vidal
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2013-12-17
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781135950378

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The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture by Tom Brown,Belén Vidal Pdf

The biographical film or biopic is a staple of film production in all major film industries and yet, within film studies, its generic, aesthetic, and cultural significance has remained underexplored. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture fills this gap, conceptualizing the biopic with a particular eye toward the "life" of the genre internationally. New theoretical approaches combine with specially commissioned chapters on contemporary biographical film production in India, Italy, South Korea, France, Russia, Great Britain, and the US, in order to present a selective but well-rounded portrait of the biopic’s place in film culture. From Marie Antoinette to The Social Network, the pieces in this volume critically examine the place of the biopic within ongoing debates about how cinema can and should represent history and "real lives." Contributors discuss the biopic’s grounding in the conventions of the historical film, and explore the genre’s defining traits as well as its potential for innovation. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture expands the critical boundaries of this evolving, versatile genre.

Whose Lives Are They Anyway?

Author : Dennis Bingham
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2010-03-04
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 0813549302

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Whose Lives Are They Anyway? by Dennis Bingham Pdf

The biopic presents a profound paradox—its own conventions and historical stages of development, disintegration, investigation, parody, and revival have not gained respect in the world of film studies. That is, until now. Whose Lives Are They Anyway? boldly proves a critical point: The biopic is a genuine, dynamic genre and an important one—it narrates, exhibits, and celebrates a subject's life and demonstrates, investigates, or questions his or her importance in the world; it illuminates the finer points of a personality; and, ultimately, it provides a medium for both artist and spectator to discover what it would be like to be that person, or a certain type of person. Through detailed analyses and critiques of nearly twenty biopics, Dennis Bingham explores what is at their core—the urge to dramatize real life and find a version of the truth within it. The genre's charge, which dates back to the salad days of the Hollywood studio era, is to introduce the biographical subject into the pantheon of cultural mythology and, above all, to show that he or she belongs there. It means to discover what we learn about our culture from the heroes who rise and the leaders who emerge from cinematic representations. Bingham also zooms in on distinctions between cinematic portrayals of men and women. Films about men have evolved from celebratory warts-and-all to investigatory to postmodern and parodic. At the same time, women in biopics have been burdened by myths of suffering, victimization, and failure from which they are only now being liberated. To explore the evolution and lifecycle changes of the biopic and develop an appreciation for subgenres contained within it, there is no better source than Whose Lives Are They Anyway?

A Companion to the Biopic

Author : Deborah Cartmell,Ashley D. Polasek
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 466 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2020-01-15
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781119554813

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A Companion to the Biopic by Deborah Cartmell,Ashley D. Polasek Pdf

The most comprehensive reference text of theoretical and historical discourse on the biopic film The biopic, often viewed as the most reviled of all film genres, traces its origins to the early silent era over a century ago. Receiving little critical attention, biopics are regularly dismissed as superficial, formulaic, and disrespectful of history. Film critics, literary scholars and historians tend to believe that biopics should be artistic, yet accurate, true-to-life representations of their subjects. Moviegoing audiences, however, do not seem to hold similar views; biopics continue to be popular, commercially viable films. Even the genre’s most ardent detractors will admit that these films are often very watchable, particularly due to the performance of the lead actor. It is increasingly common for stars of biographical films to garner critical praise and awards, driving a growing interest in scholarship in the genre. A Companion to the Biopic is the first global and authoritative reference on the subject. Offering theoretical, historical, thematic, and performance-based approaches, this unique volume brings together the work of top scholars to discuss the coverage of the lives of authors, politicians, royalty, criminals, and pop stars through the biopic film. Chapters explore evolving attitudes and divergent perspectives on the genre with topics such as the connections between biopics and literary melodramas, the influence financial concerns have on aesthetic, social, or moral principles, the merger of historical narratives with Hollywood biographies, stereotypes and criticisms of the biopic genre, and more. This volume: Provides a systematic, in-depth analysis of the biopic and considers how the choice of historical subject reflects contemporary issues Places emphasis on films that portray race and gender issues Explores the uneven boundaries of the genre by addressing what is and is not a biopic as well as the ways in which films simultaneously embrace and defy historical authenticity Examines the distinction between reality and ‘the real’ in biographical films Offers a chronological survey of biopics from the beginning of the 20th century A Companion to the Biopic is a valuable resource for researchers, scholars, and students of history, film studies, and English literature, as well as those in disciplines that examine interpretations of historical figures

A Companion to the Historical Film

Author : Robert A. Rosenstone,Constantin Parvulescu
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 597 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2015-12-02
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781119169574

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A Companion to the Historical Film by Robert A. Rosenstone,Constantin Parvulescu Pdf

Broad in scope, this interdisciplinary collection of original scholarship on historical film features essays that explore the many facets of this expanding field and provide a platform for promising avenues of research. Offers a unique collection of cutting edge research that questions the intention behind and influence of historical film Essays range in scope from inclusive broad-ranging subjects such as political contexts, to focused assessments of individual films and auteurs Prefaced with an introductory survey of the field by its two distinguished editors Features interdisciplinary contributions from scholars in the fields of History, Film Studies, Anthropology, and Cultural and Literary Studies

The "Disguised" Political Film in Contemporary Hollywood

Author : Betty Kaklamanidou
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2016-10-20
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781501322310

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The "Disguised" Political Film in Contemporary Hollywood by Betty Kaklamanidou Pdf

With strict guidelines on methodology and time frame -- films produced after September 2001, and a socio-semiotic theoretical framework -- Betty Kaklamanidou unpacks the problematic terms and ideas that go along with defining a new genre. Kaklamanidou considers a different sub-genre per chapter, placing each group of films in their socio-historical context to reach conclusions about the production of political films in millennial Hollywood. In shifting the terms of the debate, The "Disguised" Political Film in Contemporary Hollywood offers a fresh, new approach to the subject of the political film. The political film is not a clearly delineated object but rather an elusive one and resistant to clear boundaries. So, what is a political film? Can The Hunger Games (2012) belong to the same category as Lincoln (2012)? Is Jarhead (2005) a political movie simply because it is set during the Gulf War but with no reference to the motives of the conflict and/or American and Arab relations, and thus in the same group of war films such as The Three Kings (1999), another narrative that focuses on the same military conflict but includes direct commentary to governmental and military strategies? Are historical films by definition political since the majority deals with significant events and/or people in a specific socio-cultural landscape?

21st Century Perspectives on Music, Technology, and Culture

Author : R. Purcell,R. Randall
Publisher : Springer
Page : 204 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2016-04-08
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781137497604

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21st Century Perspectives on Music, Technology, and Culture by R. Purcell,R. Randall Pdf

This collection presents a contemporary evaluation of the changing structures of music delivery and enjoyment. Exploring the confluence of music consumption, burgeoning technology, and contemporary culture; this volume focuses on issues of musical communities and the politics of media.

Film and Domestic Space

Author : Stefano Baschiera
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2020-05-28
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781474428941

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Film and Domestic Space by Stefano Baschiera Pdf

Drawing on a broad range of theoretical disciplines - and with case studies of directors such as Chantal Akerman, Agnès Varda, Claire Denis and Todd Haynes, Amos Gitai, Martin Ritt, John Ford, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine - this book goes beyond the representational approach to the analysis of domestic space in cinema, in order to look at it as a dispositif.

Fashion Film

Author : Nick Rees-Roberts
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2018-12-13
Category : Design
ISBN : 9781472519184

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Fashion Film by Nick Rees-Roberts Pdf

The moving image has become a key marketing tool for luxury fashion, central in enabling brands to shape their visual codes and extend their brand awareness. Fashion Film is the first detailed study of the shifting shape of fashion imagery in the digital age, investigating the role of the moving image in the promotion, communication and spectacle of contemporary fashion. Combining interdisciplinary analysis of cinema and digital culture, this ground-breaking book traces the emergence of fashion film in the 21st century through its historical roots in pre-digital forms of photography, experimental cinema, mass-media advertising and documentary film-making, right up to today's visual spread of contemporary fashion on video blogs, online magazines and live-streamed catwalk shows. Examining collaborations between fashion designers and pioneering image-makers such as Guy Bourdin, Jean-Paul Goode, William Klein and Nick Knight, the book highlights the critical tension between the fashion film conceived as a creative endeavour and as commercial enterprise. Fashion Film also includes a parallel focus on factual representations of fashion through the recent rise of documentary fashion film that goes behind the scenes to follow the processes and personalities involved in making fashion. Accessible and well-illustrated, Fashion Film will appeal to students and scholars of fashion, film, media, photography, celebrity, sociology and cultural studies.

African Documentary Cinema

Author : Alexie Tcheuyap
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 245 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2024-08-01
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781040097618

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African Documentary Cinema by Alexie Tcheuyap Pdf

African Documentary Cinema investigates the inception and trajectory of contemporary documentary filmmaking in sub-Saharan African countries and their diasporas. The book challenges critical paradigms that have long prevailed in African film criticism, shedding light on the diverse discourses and evolving aesthetic trends present within documentary films. Situating his analysis within the context of the significant transformation of the African film industry, the author focuses on the development, diversity, and shifting dynamics that have impacted contemporary documentary cinema. Examining the historical, political, sociological, economic, and cultural factors that have facilitated the rise of documentary films—especially those created by female documentarians—the book assesses the emergence of documentary filmmakers spanning different generations. Their training, practices, and innovative perspectives on social, political, and environmental issues ultimately give rise to new frameworks for understanding the bio-documentary genre, issues of gender discrimination, LGBTQIA+ identities, environmental trauma, genocide, and memory on the African continent. This ground-breaking study offers new insight into a rapidly expanding topic and will appeal to students and scholars in the fields of film studies, documentary film, media industry studies, African studies, French, postcolonial studies, politics, and cultural studies.

Gendering History on Screen

Author : Julia Erhart
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2018-03-05
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781786724267

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Gendering History on Screen by Julia Erhart Pdf

In movies about landmark historical events such as wars, occupations, or migrations or historically important personalities, there is an unspoken set of rules for how gender ought to be expressed. Often condemned by critics for being excessively emotional or pathetic, films by female directors featuring female protagonists may be popular with audiences but judged incapable of expressing 'real' history. Audiences learn more about the past from movies than from any other form of entertainment, and historical and heritage cinemas now comprise a burgeoning scholarly field. Yet to date there has not been a book-length analysis of female film directors' innovations in films about the historical past. With and without critical recognition, women are making important stories about the past and bringing new representations of agency and activism to the screen, often construed in ways that mobilise the past for the present, and always filtered through the lens of contemporary feminisms. Julia Erhart's new book situates women filmmakers' work within a context of other women directors from France, Denmark, Iran, Australia, the UK, the United States, and Spain and draws connections between their representational strategies and their concerns with visioning the past within the prism of the present. Written in an approachable yet theoretically informed prose, Erhart compellingly explores how foundational historiographic concepts like valour, memory, and resistance are re-envisioned within uniquely revised sub-genres that include biopics, historical documentaries, Holocaust movies, and films about the 'War on Terror'. Gendering History on Screen demonstrates how directors shape audiences' sense of the past, contour globally-relevant themes and narratives to suit female characters, and map a critique of national policies and institutions on to contemporary feminisms. Gendering History will be invaluable to students and scholars of historical film and women's cinema.

Representing Royalty

Author : Julia Kinzler
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 347 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2018-07-27
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781527514966

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Representing Royalty by Julia Kinzler Pdf

Since the early days of cinema, filmmakers have been intrigued by the lives and loves of British monarchs. The most recent productions by ITV and Netflix show that the fascination with British royalty continues unabated both in Britain and around the world. This book examines strategies of representing power and the staging of myths of power in seven popular films about British monarchs that were made after the mid-1990s revival of the “royal biopic” genre. By combining approaches from cultural studies with concepts and theories from the humanities, such as film studies and art history, it offers a comprehensive understanding of the cinematic portraits of royalty. In addition, the volume opens up new perspectives on how meaning is generated in films about the monarchy and on the connections between the biographical narratives. The introductory chapter to the case studies reviews the different academic positions on representations of royalty, provides a toolkit for studying the subject and demonstrates ways to approach the films. The book addresses questions of historical context and goes beyond a mere exploration of historical accuracy to reveal the films’ underlying ideological aims. As such, it makes a distinctive new contribution to the growing body of interdisciplinary work on the British monarchy in general and its cinematic representations in particular. It is the first monograph about representational mechanisms of royal identities and British past(s) in royal films such as Elizabeth, The Queen and The King’s Speech.

Biopics of Women

Author : Karen Hollinger
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 227 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2020-04-22
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781000027273

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Biopics of Women by Karen Hollinger Pdf

This book is an accessible overview of biographical fiction films of women and is structured around four of the most popular subjects of female biopics: queens and political figures; entertainers; writers; and subjects of current affairs. While the biopic is commonly accepted as a deeply conservative cinematic form that represents glorification of the past and of the self-made individual, a number of biopics of women challenge all of these characterizations. They show the genre to be much more complicated and challenging to regressive ideas than has been proposed, and open to different formats and thematic possibilities. Providing an overview of key subgenres complemented by analyses of key texts that illustrate major aspects of each category, Biopics of Women examines the development of biographical films in each area and the images of successful women they project in order to investigate the issues involved in women’s representation in the genre as a whole. This is a lively and readable text for students and scholars in Gender and Film, Gender and Media, and Women’s Studies.

Heritage Film

Author : Belén Vidal
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 162 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780231162036

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Heritage Film by Belén Vidal Pdf

The British heritage film : nation and representation -- Production cycles and cultural significance : a European heritage film? -- Narrative aesthetics and gentered histories : renewing the heritage film -- Afterword: tradition and change.

Middlebrow Cinema

Author : Sally Faulkner
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 239 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2016-03-31
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781317247418

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Middlebrow Cinema by Sally Faulkner Pdf

Middlebrow Cinema challenges an often uninterrogated hostility to middlebrow culture that frequently dismisses it as conservative, which it often is not, and feminized or middle-class, which it often is. The volume defines the term relationally against shifting concepts of ‘high’ and ‘low’, and considers its deployment in connection with text, audience and institution. In exploring the concept of the middlebrow, this book recovers films that were widely meaningful to contemporary audiences, yet sometimes overlooked by critics interested in popular and arthouse extremes. It also addresses the question of socially-mobile audiences, who might express their aspirations through film-watching; and traces the cultural consequences of the movement of films across borders and between institutions. The first study of its kind, the volume comprises 11 original essays that test the purchase of the term ‘middlebrow’ across cultures, including those of Europe, Asia and the Americas, from the 1930s to the present day. Middlebrow Cinema brings into view a popular and aspirational - and thus especially relevant and dynamic - area of film and film culture. Ideal for students and researchers in this area, this book: Remaps ‘Popular’ and ‘arthouse’ approaches Explores British, Chinese, French, Indian, Mexican, Spanish ‘national’ cinemas alongside Continental, Hollywood, Queer, Transnational cinemas Analyses Biopic, Heritage, Historical Film, Melodrama, Musical, Sex Comedy genres.