A Cinematic History of Gangsters & Detectives

A Cinematic History of Gangsters & Detectives
Author: Mark Wilshin
Publisher: Heinemann-Raintree Library
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2005
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781410920096

Examines the development of the gangster and detective film genres, from early works such as Al Capone to modern detective films such as L.A. Confidential.

Detecting Men

Detecting Men
Author: Philippa Gates
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0791481387

Detecting Men examines the history of the Hollywood detective genre and the ways that detective films have negotiated changing social attitudes toward masculinity, heroism, law enforcement, and justice. Genre film can be a site for the expression and resolution of problematic social issues, but while there have been many studies of such other male genres as war films, gangster films, and Westerns, relatively little attention has been paid to detective films beyond film noir. In this volume, Philippa Gates examines classical films of the thirties and forties as well as recent examples of the genre, including Die Hard, the Lethal Weapon films, The Usual Suspects, Seven, Devil in a Blue Dress, and Murder by Numbers, in order to explore social anxieties about masculinity and crime and Hollywood's conceptions of gender. Up until the early 1990s, Gates argues, the primary focus of the detective genre was the masculinity of the hero. However, from the mid-1990s onward, the genre has shifted to more technical portrayals of crime scene investigation, forensic science, and criminal profiling, offering a reassuring image of law enforcement in the face of violent crime. By investigating the evolution of the detective film, Gates suggests, perhaps we can detect the male.

A Cinematic History of War & Epics

A Cinematic History of War & Epics
Author: Mark Wilshin
Publisher: Heinemann-Raintree Library
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2005
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781410920089

Examines the development of the war film genre, from early works such as Ben Hur to realistic modern war films such as Saving Private Ryan.

A Cinematic History of Comedy

A Cinematic History of Comedy
Author: Mark Wilshin
Publisher: Heinemann-Raintree Library
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2005
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781410920126

Examines the development of the comedy film genre, from the early works of people such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton to the more modern slapstick films such as Dumb and Dumber, and the Monty Python movies

A Cinematic History of Sci-fi & Fantasy

A Cinematic History of Sci-fi & Fantasy
Author: Mark Wilshin
Publisher: Heinemann-Raintree Library
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2005
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781410920119

Describes the history of science fiction and fantasy films and their technological effects through the decades.

The Film Experience

The Film Experience
Author: Timothy Corrigan
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 548
Release: 2012-01-03
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0312681704

"A comprehensive introduction to film that recognizes students as movie fans and helps them understand the art form's full scope. The authors situate their strong coverage of the medium's formal elements within the larger cultural contexts that inform the ways we watch film, from economics and exhibition to marketing and the star system." -- Blackwells.

Criminal Femmes Fatales in American Hardboiled Crime Fiction

Criminal Femmes Fatales in American Hardboiled Crime Fiction
Author: Maysaa Husam Jaber
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2016-02-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137356472

This book fills a gap in both literary and feminist scholarship by offering the first major study of femme fatales in hardboiled crime fiction. Maysaa Jaber shows that the criminal literary figures in the genre open up powerful spaces for imagining female agency in direct opposition to the constraining forces of patriarchy and misogyny.

Australian Genre Film

Australian Genre Film
Author: Kelly McWilliam
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2021-04-26
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 042988981X

Australian Genre Film interrogates key genres at the core of Australia’s so-called new golden age of genre cinema, establishing the foundation on which more sustained research on film genre in Australian cinema can develop. The book examines what characterises Australian cinema and its output in this new golden age, as contributors ask to what extent Australian genre film draws on widely understood (and largely Hollywood-based) conventions, as compared to culturally specific conventions of genre storytelling. As such, this book offers a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of Australian genre film, undertaken through original analyses of 13 significant Australian genres: action, biopics, comedy, crime, horror, musical, road movie, romance, science fiction, teen, thriller, war, and the Western. This book will be a cornerstone work for the burgeoning field of Australian film genre studies and a must-read for academics; researchers; undergraduate students; postgraduate students; and general readers interested in film studies, media studies, cultural studies, Australian studies, and sociology.

Genre and Hollywood

Genre and Hollywood
Author: Steve Neale
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2005-06-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134973454

Genre and Hollywood provides a comprehensive introduction to the study of genre. In this important new book, Steve Neale discusses all the major concepts, theories and accounts of Hollywood and genre, as well as the key genres which theorists have written about, from horror to the Western. He also puts forward new arguments about the importance of genre in understanding Hollywood cinema. Neale takes issue with much genre criticism and genre theory, which has provided only a partial and misleading account of Hollywood's output. He calls for broader and more flexible conceptions of genre and genres, for more attention to be paid to the discourses and practices of Hollywood itself, for the nature and range of Hollywood's films to be looked at in more detail, and for any assessment of the social and cultural significance of Hollywood's genres to take account of industrial factors. In detailed, revisionist accounts of two major genres - film noir and melodrama - Neale argues that genre remains an important and productive means of thinking about both New and old Hollywood, its history, its audiences and its films.

Overhearing Film Dialogue

Overhearing Film Dialogue
Author: Sarah Kozloff
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2000-03-30
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780520924024

Since the birth of cinema, film has been lauded as a visual rather than a verbal medium; this sentiment was epitomized by John Ford's assertion in 1964 that, "When a motion picture is at its best, it is long on action and short on dialogue." Little serious work has been done on the subject of film dialogue, yet what characters say and how they say it has been crucial to our experience and understanding of every film since the coming of sound. Through informative discussions of dozens of classic and contemporary films—from Bringing Up Baby to Terms of Endearment, from Stagecoach to Reservoir Dogs--this lively book provides the first full-length study of the use of dialogue in American film. Sarah Kozloff shows why dialogue has been neglected in the analysis of narrative film and uncovers the essential contributions dialogue makes to a film's development and impact. She uses narrative theory and drama theory to analyze the functions that dialogue typically serves in a film. The second part of the book is a comprehensive discussion of the role and nature of dialogue in four film genres: westerns, screwball comedies, gangster films, and melodramas. Focusing on topics such as class and ethnic dialects, censorship, and the effect of dramatic irony, Kozloff provides an illuminating new perspective on film genres.