New Books in Film

While there are a number of studies of how women are represented in popular culture, Norma Jones, Maja Bajac-Carter, Bob Batchelor’s collection of essays Heroines of Film and Television: Portrayals in Popular Culture (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014)looks at the heroine. From discussions of traditional characters such as Wonder Woman and... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoic...

Steven Spielberg’s long career as a filmmaker began with television. In addition to episodes of popular TV series, he also directed one of the most popular made for television movies of all time, Duel. In Steven Spielberg and Duel: The Making of a Film Career (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014), Steven... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a prem...

For many people, filmgoing is a moment to submerge themselves in a new world of meaning and experience a different reality. While film is prominently defined by its ‘moving images’ these alone are not usually able to fully move a viewer. Audiovisual cinema is much more compelling and music has... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium...

Margaret Mitchell’s blockbuster novel was released in 1936 to great acclaim. It immediately drew interest from Hollywood hoping to turn it into an epic film. After its sale, Mitchell began a large series of letters related to the making of the film. GWTW expert John Wiley, Jr. reviewed the large... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premiu...

The United States and the world underwent a fundamental change because of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In addition to major wars, the event has brought up themes of security, torture, and the overall issue of terrorism in the 21st century. In Parallel Lines: Post-9/11 American Cinema (Wallflower Press, 2014),... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support...

War has been a constant topic for feature films since the invention of the motion picture camera. These events made for interesting stories and dynamic visual representations. In their book, War on the Silver Screen: Shaping America’s Perception of History (Potomac Books, 2014),  Glen Jeansonne and David Luhrssen discussed a number of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoic...

Many books on film discuss the artistic aspects of movies, often as they relate to social and political events that affected the filmmakers. In his book The Birth of a Nation: How a Legendary Filmmaker and a Crusading Editor Reignited America’s Civil War (PublicAffairs, 2014), journalist/professor Dick Lehr uses a... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show b...

One of the most enduring film genres is the sports movie. From the earliest attempts at narrative motion pictures to the present day, movies devoted to athletic competition are both popular and lasting. In The Sports Film: Games People Play (Wallflower Press, 2014), Bruce Babington presents an historical overview of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show...

When television began to grow in popularity, broadcasters had to come up with programming to fill the day. Growing from the Flash Gordon movie serials, science fiction shows geared towards young people filled the air in the 1950s, affecting both entertainment and the consumer culture. The series were also major... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by b...

One of the continuing issues of the entertainment industry is the treatment of women in movies and television. Even with a larger number of female writers, producers, and directors, roles often follow stereotypical and negative conventions. In her new book Smart Chicks on Screen: Representing Women’s Intellect in Film and... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support ou...

Bridget Conor’s new book, Screenwriting: Creative Labor and Professional Practice (Routledge, 2014), looks closely at the creative practice and profession of screenwriting for film and television in the US and UK.  Situated within the critical media production studies paradigm, Screenwriting analyzes the history, current industrial practices, identities, and cultural milieu... Learn more about you...

When George Lucas first began to write “The Star Wars”, as it was originally known, he had no idea that it would become his main life’s work. Beginning as a modern Flash Gordon-style space adventure, the eventual series would become arguably the most successful film franchise in history. In his... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium...

While the Cold War ended in 1991 with a whimper, not a bang, it still affects popular culture in many ways. In his book. Hollywood and the End of the Cold War: Signs of Cinematic Change (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014), Bryn Upton discusses how filmmakers used many of the same... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://new...

Stardom has a history. Hideaki Fujiki‘s new book traces that history through a story of the transformations of Japanese film stars in the early twentieth century. Taking a deeply transnational approach to understanding the imbrication of film stardom and modernity in Japan, Making Personas: Transnational Film Stardom in Modern Japan... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...

When we watch film various visual elements direct our understanding of the narrative and its meaning. The subjective position of each viewer informs their reading of images in a multitude of ways. From this perspective, religion can be imaged in film and may be found by viewers but its interpretation... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a p...

Last weekend was the NFL Draft, the annual event when teams select college players who have shown the talent to advance to the professional ranks. Staged at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, broadcast live on two cable networks, and surrounded by ceaseless media attention and analysis, the Draft is... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a pre...

It seems that everyone in Hollywood is on the political Left. “Seems” is the operative word here, because there are actually Republicans in pictures, at least according to this website. (NB: I have no idea whether the folks who created this list know what they’re talking about, so beware.) Nonetheless,... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a...

Aswin Punthamabekar‘s From Bombay to Bollywood: The Making of a Global Media Industry (New York University Press, 2013) offers a deeply researched and richly theorized look at the evolution of the world’s largest film industry over the past few decades. Combining ethnographic research with close textual analyses of Bollywood films,... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...

Fifty years of Holocaust screenplays and films -largely unknown, killed by censors, and buried in dusty archives – come to life in Olga Gershenson‘s The Phantom Holocaust: Soviet Cinema and Jewish Catastrophe (Rutgers UP, 2013). As she ventures across three continents to uncover the stories behind these films, we follow... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our...

In The Aesthetics of Shadow: Lighting and Japanese Cinema (Duke UP, 2013), Daisuke Miyao explores a history of light and its absence in Japanese cinema. A commentary on the history of modernity, the book considers how an aesthetics of shadow emerged from a Japanese modern that was fundamentally transnational. A fascinating history of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoice...

Filmmakers discovered in the early twentieth century that Americans would gladly pay to be scared to death. As the decades marched on, dismissive critics regularly wrote obituaries for the relentlessly popular horror genre, even as other kinds of films (Blaxploitation, anyone?) disappeared from theaters. David Konow, in Reel Terror: The Scary,... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.f...

Did you see one of Eisenstein’s masterpieces “The Battleship Potemkin” and “Alexander Nevsky” in a Russian or Soviet history class? Were you captivated by Tarkovsky’s brooding long shots in movies such as “Solaris” and “Stalker“? Did you seek out Pichul’s “Little Vera” in the theater to get a glimpse of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming...

As each frame of a film goes by we witness a new world that is situated in space and time. This process of worldmaking happens through the cinematic lens but also through the myths and rituals of religious traditions. Or so argues S. Brent Plate, Visiting Associate Professor of Religious... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member...

First things first: this was probably the most fun I’ve had working through an STS monograph. (Really: Who doesn’t like reading about Jurassic Park and King Kong?) In addition to being full of wonderful anecdotes about the film and television industries, David Kirby‘s Lab Coats in Hollywood: Science, Scientists, and... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show...

Any pop culture scholar worth her salt will tell you that discussion of Beyonce’s baby bump or Charlie Sheen’s unique sex life is far from apolitical, but, at times, gossip columnists have engaged more transparently in political debate. Hedda Hopper, Hollywood insider and conservative hat enthusiast, was one such columnist.... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support...