Essays here explore the relationship between politics and explicitly political feature films from the beginning of the movie industry to World War I, and for each decade through to the 1980's. The included filmography is particularly useful. Originally published in 1990, the method of inquiry put forward in this text is nonetheless extendable to the decades following its publication.

Originally published in 1994, this important book traces the rise of film propaganda in the 20th Century, discussing specifically how film can be used to manipulate public perception and opinions. Two distinct areas are covered: war propaganda, including feature and documentary films regarding warfare; and civilian propaganda, including films that address a variety of political subjects. Although the focus is American film and American politics, this book offers insights for all those inte...

This text outlines what sociologists need to know of the nature of communication and of mass culture, while also looking in some empirical detail at the workings of the Hollywood community and the psychology of the star system. It explores trends such as attempts to adapt semiology and psycholinguistics to our understanding of film ‘language’, using them to develop a paradigm for film analysis. The book goes on to offer a guide to comprehension of the relation between cinema and society th...

As Charlton Heston put it: ‘There’s a temptingly simple definition of the epic film: it’s the easiest kind of picture to make badly.’ This book goes beyond that definition to show how the film epic has taken up one of the most ancient art-forms and propelled it into the modern world, covered in twentieth-century ambitions, anxieties, hopes and fantasies. This survey of historical epic films dealing with periods up to the end of the Dark Ages looks at epic form and discusses the films by hi...

During the interwar period cinema and literature seemed to be at odds with each other, part of the continuing struggle between mass and elite culture which so worried writers such as Aldous Huxley, T.S. Eliot and the Leavises. And this cultural divide appeared to be sharp evidence of a deeper struggle for control of the nation’s consciousness, not only between dominant and oppositional elements within Britain, but between British and American vales as well.On the one hand, films li...

This collection of papers examines the evolving relationship between the motion picture industry and television from the 1940s onwards. The institutional and technological histories of the film and TV industries are looked at, concluding that Hollywood and television had a symbiotic relationship from the start. Aspects covered include the movement of audiences, the rise of the independent producer, the introduction of colour and the emergence of network structure, cable TV and video record...

This is a comprehensive survey of the relationship between film and literature. It looks at the cinematic adaptations of such literary masters as Shakespeare, Henry James, Joseph Conrad and D.H. Lawrence, and considers the contribution to the cinema made by important literary figures as Harold Pinter, James Agree and Graham Greene. Elsewhere, the book draws intriguing analogies between certain literary and film artists, such as Dickens and Chaplin, Ford and Twain, and suggests that such an...

Millions of Americans have been thrilled, scared, titillated, and shocked by exploitation movies, low budget films with many scenes of sex, violence, and other potentially lurid elements. The term derives from the fact that promoters of such films exploit the contents in advertising that plays up the sexual or violent aspects of the films. This is the first comprehensive study of the American exploitation film to be published. It discusses five distinct genres: the teen movie, the sexploit...

In this book the author takes a fresh look at horror film series as series and presents an understanding of how the genre thrived in this format for a large portion of its history. It sheds light on older films such as the Universal and the Hammer series films on Dracula, Frankenstein and the Mummy as well as putting more recent series into perspective, such as The Nightmare on Elm Street films. A well rounded review of these films and investigation into their success as a format, this use...

Originally published in 1964, this book tells the history of the British cinematograph industry for the first time. It describes moments of splendid triumph and others of shattering failure. The mood switches from reckless optimism to demoralising pessimism, from years in which British films won the highest international awards to those when they were dismissed with scorn.It recalls a score of productions still ranked among the world's best, and the stars whose reputation was estab...

This was the first comprehensive study of film production in Ireland from the silent period to the present day, and of representations of Ireland and ‘Irishness’ in native, British, and American films. It remains an authority on the topic. The book focuses on Irish history and politics to examine the context and significance of such films as Irish Destiny, The Quiet Man, Ryan’s Daughter, Man of Aran, Cal, The Courier, and The Dead.

This book examines the development of cinematic form and culture in Russia, from its late nineteenth-century beginnings as a fairground attraction to the early post-Revolutionary years.The author traces the changing perceptions of cinema and its social transition from a modernist invention to a national art form. He explores reactions to the earliest films from actors, novelists, poets, writers and journalists. His richly detailed study of the physical elements of cinematic perform...