Constantine Verevis - Böcker

Banned soon after its first midnight screenings, the prints seized and the organizers arrested, Jack Smith’s incendiary Flaming Creatures (1963) quickly became a cause célèbre of the New York underground. Championed and defended by Jonas Mekas and Susan Sontag, among others, the film wildly and gleefully transgresses nearly every norm of Hollywood morality and aesthetics. In a surreal and visually dense series of episodes, the titular “creatures” reenact scenes drawn from the collective cinematic unconscious, playing on mainstream film culture’s moral code in a way that is at once a love letter to classical Hollywood and a searing send-up of its absurdities.Tracing the film’s production and reception history, Constantine Verevis argues that it embodies a unique type of cinematic rewriting, one that combines Smith’s multifaceted artistic work with exotic fragments drawn from the cinematic past. This study of Smith’s magnum opus explores its status as a cult film that appropriates the visual texture, erotic nuance, and overt fabrication of old Hollywood exoticism.

In the wake of the debates over high/low culture distinction spilling into the effective dismantling of the boundary that once separated them, the past decade has seen the explosion of ‘bad taste’ production on screen. Starting with paracinema or ‘badfilm’ – a movement that has grown up around sleazy, excessive, or poorly executed B-movies and has come to encompass disreputable and unworthy films – this trend has been evident in various formats: on television and in video-art, low-budget and straight to TV films, amateur and home movies. The proliferation of trash on screen can be seen as delivering the final blow to the vexed issue of taste.More importantly, it prompts a reconsideration of some critical issues surrounding production, circulation, understanding and teaching of ‘bad objects’ in the media. This collection of essays, written by international film and television scholars, provides detailed critical analysis of the issues surrounding judgements of cultural value and taste, feeling and affect, cultural morals and politics, research methodologies and teaching strategies in the new landscape of ‘after taste’ media. Addressing global and local developments – from global Hollywood to Australian indigenous film and television, through auteurs Sergei Eisenstein to Jerry Bruckheimer, on to examples such as Twilight to Sukiyaki Western Django – the essays in this book offer a range of critical tools for understanding the recent shifts affecting cultural, aesthetic and political value of the moving image.This book was originally published as a special issue of Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies.

In the wake of the debates over high/low culture distinction spilling into the effective dismantling of the boundary that once separated them, the past decade has seen the explosion of ‘bad taste’ production on screen. Starting with paracinema or ‘badfilm’ – a movement that has grown up around sleazy, excessive, or poorly executed B-movies and has come to encompass disreputable and unworthy films – this trend has been evident in various formats: on television and in video-art, low-budget and straight to TV films, amateur and home movies. The proliferation of trash on screen can be seen as delivering the final blow to the vexed issue of taste.More importantly, it prompts a reconsideration of some critical issues surrounding production, circulation, understanding and teaching of ‘bad objects’ in the media. This collection of essays, written by international film and television scholars, provides detailed critical analysis of the issues surrounding judgements of cultural value and taste, feeling and affect, cultural morals and politics, research methodologies and teaching strategies in the new landscape of ‘after taste’ media. Addressing global and local developments – from global Hollywood to Australian indigenous film and television, through auteurs Sergei Eisenstein to Jerry Bruckheimer, on to examples such as Twilight to Sukiyaki Western Django – the essays in this book offer a range of critical tools for understanding the recent shifts affecting cultural, aesthetic and political value of the moving image.This book was originally published as a special issue of Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies.

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive and systematic account of the phenomenon of cinematic remaking. Drawing upon recent theories of genre and intertextuality, Film Remakes describes remaking as both an elastic concept and a complex situation, one enabled and limited by the interrelated roles and practices of industry, critics and audiences. This approach to remaking is developed across three broad sections: the first, remaking as industrial category, deals with issues of production, including commerce and authors; the second, remaking as textual category, considers genre, plots and structures; and the third, remaking as critical category, investigates issues of reception, including audiences and institutions. The film remake emerges as a particular case of repetition, a function of cinematic and discursive fields that is maintained by historically specific practices, such as copyright law and authorship, canon formation and media literacy, film criticism and re-viewing. These points are made through the lively discussion of numerous historical and contemporary examples, including the remaking of classics (Double Indemnity, All That Heaven Allows, Psycho), foreign art-films (Yojimbo, Solaris, Le Samouraï), cult movies (Gun Crazy, Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Dead), and television properties (Batman, The Addams Family, Charlie’s Angels).

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive and systematic account of the phenomenon of cinematic remaking. Drawing upon recent theories of genre and intertextuality, Film Remakes describes remaking as both an elastic concept and a complex situation, one enabled and limited by the interrelated roles and practices of industry, critics and audiences. This approach to remaking is developed across three broad sections: the first, remaking as industrial category, deals with issues of production, including commerce and authors; the second, remaking as textual category, considers genre, plots and structures; and the third, remaking as critical category, investigates issues of reception, including audiences and institutions. The film remake emerges as a particular case of repetition, a function of cinematic and discursive fields that is maintained by historically specific practices, such as copyright law and authorship, canon formation and media literacy, film criticism and re-viewing. These points are made through the lively discussion of numerous historical and contemporary examples, including the remaking of classics (Double Indemnity, All That Heaven Allows, Psycho), foreign art-films (Yojimbo, Solaris, Le Samouraï), cult movies (Gun Crazy, Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Dead), and television properties (Batman, The Addams Family, Charlie’s Angels).

In contemporary film and popular culture the terms ‘independent’ and ‘indie’ hold instant recognition and considerable cultural cachet. As both a brand of American filmmaking and a keynote of critical film discourse, indie denotes specific textual, industrial and reception practices that have been enthusiastically cultivated across the last decade of the twentieth century and the first of the twenty-first. Underpinning this cultural category is a canon of highly visible films and filmmakers whose ‘maverick’ personas and self-aware stylisation have successfully sold indie as a quality, alternative worldview—figures like Quentin Tarantino, Joel and Ethan Coen, Kevin Smith and Wes Anderson, and films like Slacker, Memento, Happiness and Juno. 　US Independent Filmmaking After 1989: Possible Films reframes this dominant indie canon by attending to a group of films that have not been so fully subsumed by its critical and promotional rhetoric. In 20 close analyses, a diverse range of leading film scholars and commentators allow the contours of the indie sensibility to emerge in and through their individual experiences of a single film that has not received the sustained critical acclaim of more popular titles. With particular representation from female directors—who are almost wholly excluded from the dominant indie canon—these idiosyncratic films are shown to demonstrate central tenets of indie scholarship and simultaneously emphasise the classifying processes that obscure them.

Offers an important insight into the formative moments of transnational film culture in AustraliaProvides vibrant textual studies of under-evaluated Australian international picturesDevelops an understanding of international film production in the years following WWII and before the Australian film revival of the 1970sCorrects the perception that there was no significant feature film production in Australia after the 1930s and before the revivalOffers background and important precedents for the more recent practices of global co-productions and 'Hollywood Down-under'Australian International Pictures examines the concept and definition of Australian film in relation to a range of local, international and global practices and trends that blur neat categorisations of national cinema. Although international co-production is particularly acute in the present day, this book examines the porous nature of Australian International filmmaking, and the intriguing transnational and cross-cultural formations created by globally targeted but locally focussed films made in Australia in the period 1946 75.Case Studies:The Overlanders (1946) and Ealing Down UnderKangaroo (1952)On the Beach (1959)The Sundowners (1960)The Drifting Avenger (1968)Age of Consent (1969)Color Me Dead (1970)Ned Kelly (1970)Walkabout (1971)Wake in Fright (1971)The Man from Hong Kong (1975)

Providing a cross-cultural investigation of the current phenomenon of transnational television remakes, and assembling an international team of scholars, this book draws upon ideas from transnational media and cultural studies to offer an understanding of global cultural borrowings and format translation. While recognising the commercial logic of global television formats that animates these remakes, the collection describes the traffic in transnational television remakes not as a one-way process of cultural homogenisation, but rather as an interstitial process through which cultures borrow from and interact with one another. More specifically, the chapters attend to recent debates around the transnational flows of local and global media cultures to focus on questions in the televisual realm, where issues of serialisation and distribution are prevalent. What happens when a series is remade from one national television system to another? How is cultural translation handled across series and seasons of differing length and scope? What are the narrative and dramaturgical proximities and differences between local and other versions? How does the ready availability of original, foreign series shape an audience’s reception of a local remake? How does the rhetoric of ‘Quality TV’ impact on how these remakes are understood and valued? In answering these and other questions, this volume at once acknowledges both the historical antecedents to transnational trade in broadcast culture, and the global explosion in, and cultural significance of, transnational television remakes since the beginning of the twenty-first century. This book was originally published as a special issue of Continuum.

Providing a cross-cultural investigation of the current phenomenon of transnational television remakes, and assembling an international team of scholars, this book draws upon ideas from transnational media and cultural studies to offer an understanding of global cultural borrowings and format translation. While recognising the commercial logic of global television formats that animates these remakes, the collection describes the traffic in transnational television remakes not as a one-way process of cultural homogenisation, but rather as an interstitial process through which cultures borrow from and interact with one another. More specifically, the chapters attend to recent debates around the transnational flows of local and global media cultures to focus on questions in the televisual realm, where issues of serialisation and distribution are prevalent. What happens when a series is remade from one national television system to another? How is cultural translation handled across series and seasons of differing length and scope? What are the narrative and dramaturgical proximities and differences between local and other versions? How does the ready availability of original, foreign series shape an audience’s reception of a local remake? How does the rhetoric of ‘Quality TV’ impact on how these remakes are understood and valued? In answering these and other questions, this volume at once acknowledges both the historical antecedents to transnational trade in broadcast culture, and the global explosion in, and cultural significance of, transnational television remakes since the beginning of the twenty-first century. This book was originally published as a special issue of Continuum.

Australian International Pictures examines the concept and definition of Australian film in relation to a range of local, international and global practices and trends that blur neat categorisations of national cinema. Although international co-production is particularly acute in the present day, this book examines the porous nature of Australian International filmmaking, and the intriguing transnational and cross-cultural formations created by globally targeted but locally focussed films made in Australia in the period 1946 75.

In contemporary film and popular culture the terms ‘independent’ and ‘indie’ hold instant recognition and considerable cultural cachet. As both a brand of American filmmaking and a keynote of critical film discourse, indie denotes specific textual, industrial and reception practices that have been enthusiastically cultivated across the last decade of the twentieth century and the first of the twenty-first. Underpinning this cultural category is a canon of highly visible films and filmmakers whose ‘maverick’ personas and self-aware stylisation have successfully sold indie as a quality, alternative worldview—figures like Quentin Tarantino, Joel and Ethan Coen, Kevin Smith and Wes Anderson, and films like Slacker, Memento, Happiness and Juno. 　US Independent Filmmaking After 1989: Possible Films reframes this dominant indie canon by attending to a group of films that have not been so fully subsumed by its critical and promotional rhetoric. In 20 close analyses, a diverse range of leading film scholars and commentators allow the contours of the indie sensibility to emerge in and through their individual experiences of a single film that has not received the sustained critical acclaim of more popular titles. With particular representation from female directors—who are almost wholly excluded from the dominant indie canon—these idiosyncratic films are shown to demonstrate central tenets of indie scholarship and simultaneously emphasise the classifying processes that obscure them.

The first collection of essays devoted to the phenomenon of the film sequel.Sequels, serials, and remakes have been a staple of cinema since the very beginning, and recent years have seen the emergence of dynamic and progressive variations of these multi-film franchises. Taking a broad range of sequels as case studies, from the Godfather movies to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Second Takes confronts the complications posed by film sequels and their aftermaths, proposing new critical approaches to what has become a dominant industrial mode of Hollywood cinema. The contributors explore the sequel's investments in repetition, difference, continuation, and retroactivity, and particularly those attitudes and approaches toward the sequel that hold it up as a kind of figurehead of Hollywood's commercial imperatives. An invaluable resource to the film student, critic, and fan, Second Takes offers new ways of looking at the film sequel's industrial, aesthetic, cultural, political, and theoretical contexts.

The first collection of essays devoted to the phenomenon of the film sequel.Sequels, serials, and remakes have been a staple of cinema since the very beginning, and recent years have seen the emergence of dynamic and progressive variations of these multi-film franchises. Taking a broad range of sequels as case studies, from the Godfather movies to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Second Takes confronts the complications posed by film sequels and their aftermaths, proposing new critical approaches to what has become a dominant industrial mode of Hollywood cinema. The contributors explore the sequel's investments in repetition, difference, continuation, and retroactivity, and particularly those attitudes and approaches toward the sequel that hold it up as a kind of figurehead of Hollywood's commercial imperatives. An invaluable resource to the film student, critic, and fan, Second Takes offers new ways of looking at the film sequel's industrial, aesthetic, cultural, political, and theoretical contexts.

Considers films that lurk on the boundaries of acceptability in taste, style, and politics.B Is for Bad Cinema continues and extends, but does not limit itself to, the trends in film scholarship that have made cult and exploitation films and other "low" genres increasingly acceptable objects for critical analysis. Springing from discussions of taste and value in film, these original essays mark out the broad contours of "bad"-that is, aesthetically, morally, or commercially disreputable-cinema. While some of the essays share a kinship with recent discussions of B movies and cult films, they do not describe a single aesthetic category or represent a single methodology or critical agenda, but variously approach bad cinema in terms of aesthetics, politics, and cultural value. The volume covers a range of issues, from the aesthetic and industrial mechanics of low-budget production through the terrain of audience responses and cinematic affect, and on to the broader moral and ethical implications of the material. As a result, B Is for Bad Cinema takes an interest in a variety of film examples-overblown Hollywood blockbusters, faux pornographic works, and European art house films-to consider those that lurk on the boundaries of acceptability.

Considers films that lurk on the boundaries of acceptability in taste, style, and politics.B Is for Bad Cinema continues and extends, but does not limit itself to, the trends in film scholarship that have made cult and exploitation films and other "low" genres increasingly acceptable objects for critical analysis. Springing from discussions of taste and value in film, these original essays mark out the broad contours of "bad"-that is, aesthetically, morally, or commercially disreputable-cinema. While some of the essays share a kinship with recent discussions of B movies and cult films, they do not describe a single aesthetic category or represent a single methodology or critical agenda, but variously approach bad cinema in terms of aesthetics, politics, and cultural value. The volume covers a range of issues, from the aesthetic and industrial mechanics of low-budget production through the terrain of audience responses and cinematic affect, and on to the broader moral and ethical implications of the material. As a result, B Is for Bad Cinema takes an interest in a variety of film examples-overblown Hollywood blockbusters, faux pornographic works, and European art house films-to consider those that lurk on the boundaries of acceptability.

What happens when a film is remade in another national context? How do notions of translation, adaptation and localisation help us understand the cultural dynamics of these shifts, and in what ways does a transnational perspective offer us a deeper understanding of film remaking? Bringing together a range of international scholars, Transnational Film Remakes is the first edited collection to specifically focus on the phenomenon of cross-cultural remakes. Using a variety of case studies, from Hong Kong remakes of Japanese cinema to Bollywood remakes of Australian television, this book provides an analysis of cinematic remaking that moves beyond Hollywood to address the truly global nature of this phenomenon. Looking at iconic contemporary titles such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Oldboy, as well as classics like La Bête Humaine and La Chienne, this book interrogates the fluid and dynamic ways in which texts are adapted and reworked across national borders to provide a distinctive new model for understanding these global cultural borrowings.

What happens when a film is remade in another national context? How do notions of translation, adaptation and localisation help us understand the cultural dynamics of these shifts, and in what ways does a transnational perspective offer us a deeper understanding of film remaking? Bringing together a range of international scholars, Transnational Film Remakes is the first edited collection to specifically focus on the phenomenon of cross-cultural remakes. Using a variety of case studies, from Hong Kong remakes of Japanese cinema to Bollywood remakes of Australian television, this book provides an analysis of cinematic remaking that moves beyond Hollywood to address the truly global nature of this phenomenon. Looking at iconic contemporary titles such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Oldboy, as well as classics like La Bête Humaine and La Chienne, this book interrogates the fluid and dynamic ways in which texts are adapted and reworked across national borders to provide a distinctive new model for understanding these global cultural borrowings.

Bringing together the latest developments in the study of serial formatting practices – remakes, sequels, series – Film Reboots is the first edited collection to specifically focus on the new millennial phenomenon of rebooting. Through a set of vibrant case studies, this collection investigates rebooting as a practice that seeks to remake an entire film series or franchise, with ambitions that are at once respectful and revisionary. Examining such notable examples as Batman, Ghostbusters, and Star Trek, among others, this collection contends with some of the most important features of contemporary film and media culture today.

'Daniel Herbert and Constantine Verevis' Film Reboots is dedicated to a fundamental question of the form, namely why do reboots exist and what do they do? An impressive array of scholars engage with the contemporary reboot as an industrial practice, narrative strategy, political text, and fan object, using both expected (Batman, Star Wars) and unexpected (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Twin Peaks) franchises as case studies. This collection is an important addition to and intervention in the growing body of scholarship on screen serialities.'Amanda Ann Klein, East Carolina University'Twenty-first century media culture is perpetually haunted by the films of the late twentieth century. The fascinating and essential essays in this collection provide insightful analyses of how the sequels, remakes, and reboots of these cinematic ghosts have dominated mainstream media for much of the last two decades.'Derek Kompare, Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University'A thrilling compendium of 'lenses' through which to view and understand the mechanisms driving the unceasing remit of recycled narratives in contemporary cinema, Film Reboots offers a definitive take on new modes of storytelling. An essential volume for anyone remotely interested in film.'Carolyn Jess-Cooke, University of GlasgowBringing together the latest developments in the study of serial formatting practices remakes, sequels, series Film Reboots is the first edited collection to specifically focus on the new millennial phenomenon of rebooting. Through a vibrant set of case studies, this collection investigates rebooting as an industrial, textual and discursive practice that seeks to remake an entire film series or franchise, with ambitions that are at once respectful and revisionary. Examining such iconic examples as Batman, Ghostbusters and Star Trek, among others, this collection contends with some of the most important features of contemporary film and media culture today.

The third part of a three-volume work devoted to mapping the transnational history of Australian film studies, Volume 3: Documents concludes the project by gathering together the documents that were produced during the rise of film studies in Australian academia from 1975–85. Through these sources we see the development of the particularities of Australian film theory and criticism, its relationship to its international counterparts and the establishment of key positions and the directions in which they develop. Editors Deane Williams and Constantine Verevis here collect key articles, including the works of Paul Willemen, Sam Rohdie, Ross Gibson and Meaghan Morris, among many others, in order to conclude this pioneering historiographic account of Australian film studies.