With landmark films such as Fargo, O Brother Where art Thou?,
Blood Simple, and Raising Arizona, the Coen brothers
have achieved both critical and commercial success. Proving the
existence of a ...viable market for "small" films that are also
intellectually rewarding, their work has exploded generic
conventions amid rich webs of transtextual references.
R. Barton Palmer argues that the Coen oeuvre forms a central
element in what might be called postmodernist filmmaking. Mixing
high and low cultural sources and blurring genres like noir and
comedy, the use of pastiche and anti-realist elements in films such
as The Hudsucker Proxy and Barton Fink clearly
fit the postmodernist paradigm. Palmer argues that for a full
understanding of the Coen brothers' unique position within film
culture, it is important to see how they have developed a new type
of text within general postmodernist practice that Palmer terms
commercial/independent. Analyzing their substantial body of work
from this "generic" framework is the central focus of this
book.
George Cukor Pomerance, Murray; Palmer, R. Barton
07/2015
eBook
A critical analysis of the films and career of George Cukor. George Cukor: Hollywood Master is the first book to focus on the career of director George Cukor, one of classic Hollywood's most ...important figures, with films such as The Women , Adam's Rib , Born Yesterday , Gaslight , and A Star is Born to his credit. The various essays in this volume, all written by prominent experts in the field, offer critical discussions of every feature film Cukor directed and include a rich trove of valuable information about their production histories. This is the first book devoted to one of the most beloved figures from the American cinema's golden age.
Global awareness of autism has skyrocketed since the 1980s, and
popular culture has caught on, with film and television producers
developing ever more material featuring autistic characters.
Autism ...in Film and Television brings together more than a
dozen essays on depictions of autism, exploring how autistic
characters are signified in media and how the reception of these
characters informs societal understandings of autism.
Editors Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer have assembled a
pioneering examination of autism's portrayal in film and
television. Contributors consider the various means by which autism
has been expressed in films such as Phantom Thread,
Mercury Rising , and Life Animated and in
television and streaming programs including Atypical ,
Stranger Things , Star Trek: The Next Generation ,
and Community . Across media, the figure of the brilliant,
accomplished, and "quirky" autist has proven especially appealing.
Film and television have thus staked out a progressive position on
neurodiversity by insisting on screen time for autism but have done
so while frequently ignoring the true diversity of autistic
experience. As a result, this volume is a welcome celebration of
nonjudgmental approaches to disability, albeit one that is still
freighted with stereotypes and elisions.
The rise of an influential new family of poetry in the
Middle Ages
This book is the first collective examination of late medieval
intimate first-person narratives that blur the lines between
author, ...narrator, and protagonist and usually feature
personification allegory and courtly love tropes, creating an
experimental new family of poetry. In this volume, contributors
analyze why the allegorical first-person romance embedded itself in
the vernacular literature of Western Europe and remained popular
for more than two centuries.
The editors identify and discuss three predominant forms within
this family: debate poetry, dream allegories, and autobiographies.
Contributors offer textual analyses of key works from late medieval
German, French, Italian, and Iberian literature, with discussion of
developments in England, as well.
Allegory and the Poetic Self offers a sophisticated,
theoretically current discussion of relevant literature. This
exploration of medieval "I" narratives offers insights not just
into the premodern period but also into Western literature's
subsequent traditions of self-analysis and identity crafting
through storytelling.
This reader is the first to bring together a selection of Mann's own interviews where he reflects on his film and television productions. The sixteen interviews provide historical context, ...interpretation and evaluation of the auteur's work. They encompass his entire career as a feature filmmaker and television producer/director as he and others reflect on his themes, working methods, artistic development and career achievements. The book aims to open up Mann's body of work, making it available for comparison with the work of his contemporaries, and to provide fresh insights into his film and television work. A substantive introductory essay, chronology and filmography provide additional bases for understanding the interviews, essays and work of this major filmmaker.
Key Features
* The first reader on Michael Mann
*Includes three interviews originally published in French periodicals and translated for this volume
*Open up Mann's body of work, making it available for comparison with the work of his contemporaries
Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine Palmer, R. Barton
The Tennessee Williams annual review,
01/2022
21
Journal Article
It was not widely recognized by the viewing public in 2013 that one of the year's most acclaimed films, Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, is a slant adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire. The connection ...between the two works, however, did not escape critical notice. Calling Jasmine a "take" on Streetcar, Rex Reed, for example, advised his readers to think of what Allen had confected as "Blanche du Bois meets Annie Hall." Allen's Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) is a socialite whose fall from grace brings on unrelenting self-concern that dominates her relations with others. Her desire to control her deteriorating circumstances with incessant talk becomes increasingly delusional and pathetic until she loses all touch with reality and lapses into helpless madness. Jasmine is a straightforward, if unacknowledged, imitation of the Williams property. In shaping the screenplay, Allen followed the play's plotline closely enough that the connection to Streetcar is obvious, though nothing in titling or marketing, not even an "inspired by" slug line, serves as a signal.
Combining an accessible approach with innovative scholarship, Carl Phelpstead draws on historical context, contemporary theory, and close reading to deepen our understanding of Icelandic saga ...narratives about the island's early history.
This collection presents new essays in the complex field of French
literary adaptation. Using a variety of textual and interpretive
approaches, it sheds light on issues of gender, sexuality, class,
...politics and social conventions while acknowledging a range of
contexts, from the commercial to the archival and the aesthetic.
The chapters, written by eminent international scholars, run
chronologically from The Count of Monte Cristo through
Proust and Bonjour, Tristesse to Philippe Djian's
Oh… (adapted for the screen as Elle ).
Collectively, they fill a need for contemporary discussions on the
significance of France's literary representations in the history of
global cinema.
