At the beginning of the 21st century, the US film industry had overtaken aeronautics and car industries to become one of the highest exporters of American products. Mark Wheeler's important new book ...provides both a political history of Hollywood and a reflection on the relationship between cinema and politics in America, from 1900 to the present day. Wheeler considers the interplay between the movies studios, state and national government and cultural policy and legislation, with case studies of the censorship that followed in the wake of the Hays Code 1930 and the investigations of the House Committee of Un-American Activities (HUAC) in the 1950s that led to the notorious blacklisting of alleged or known Communist sympathisers. His history of political constituencies within Hollywood ranges from the conservative right to the liberal and the communist left, from trades unionists to movie moguls. The book concludes with a look at the politics of show business, addressing links between Hollywood and political activism, films such as 'The Candidate' and 'Bulworth' that have themselves engaged with the political process, and considering the irony that despite the fact that Hollywood is perceived as a bastion of liberalism the two most famous actors-turned-politicians have been Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
By casting a wider net on the definition of torture, the author promotes a radical, theoretical reframing of our concept of torture and suggests that audiovisual products can help broaden our ...comprehension of torture as an event which includes collective and emotional dimensions and long-term social effects.
By presenting a new political framework, the book looks at the sci-fi film genre’s important critical role in a post-political world, deepening and elucidating our understanding of the post-political ...present and hence reopening the political imagination to possible future trajectories beyond the horizon of the present.
In Chinese Cinema: Identity, Power, and Globalization, a variety of scholars explore the history, aesthetics, and politics of Chinese cinema as the Chinese film industry grapples with its place as ...the second largest film industry in the world. Exploring the various ways that Chinese cinema engages with global politics, market forces, and film cultures, this edited volume places Chinese cinema against an array of contexts informing the contours of Chinese cinema today. The book also demonstrates that Chinese cinema in the global context is informed by the intersections and tensions found in Chinese and world politics, national and international co-productions, the local and global in representing Chineseness, and the lived experiences of social and political movements versus screened politics in Chinese film culture. This work is a pioneer investigation of the topic and will inspire future research by other scholars of film studies.
Contributors to Gaza on Screen, including scholars and Gazan filmmakers, explore the practice, production, and impact of film and videos from and about the Gaza Strip.
