Hilary Radner - Böcker

What lies behind current feminist discontent with contemporary cinema? Through a combination of cultural and industry analysis, Hilary Radner’s Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks and Consumer Culture shows how the needs of conglomerate Hollywood have encouraged an emphasis on consumer culture within films made for women. By exploring a number of representative "girly films," including Pretty Woman, Legally Blonde, Maid in Manhattan, The Devil Wears Prada, and Sex and the City: The Movie, Radner proposes that rather than being "post-feminist," as is usually assumed, such films are better described as "neo-feminist." Examining their narrative format, as it revolves around the story of an ambitious unmarried woman who defines herself through consumer culture as much as through work or romance, Radner argues that these films exemplify neo-liberalist values rather than those of feminism.As such, Neo-Feminist Cinema offers a new explanation as to why feminist-oriented scholars and audiences who are seeking more than "labels and love" from their film experience have viewed recent "girly films" as a betrayal of second-wave feminism, and why, on the other hand, such films have proven to be so successful at the box office.

What lies behind current feminist discontent with contemporary cinema? Through a combination of cultural and industry analysis, Hilary Radner’s Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks and Consumer Culture shows how the needs of conglomerate Hollywood have encouraged an emphasis on consumer culture within films made for women. By exploring a number of representative "girly films," including Pretty Woman, Legally Blonde, Maid in Manhattan, The Devil Wears Prada, and Sex and the City: The Movie, Radner proposes that rather than being "post-feminist," as is usually assumed, such films are better described as "neo-feminist." Examining their narrative format, as it revolves around the story of an ambitious unmarried woman who defines herself through consumer culture as much as through work or romance, Radner argues that these films exemplify neo-liberalist values rather than those of feminism.As such, Neo-Feminist Cinema offers a new explanation as to why feminist-oriented scholars and audiences who are seeking more than "labels and love" from their film experience have viewed recent "girly films" as a betrayal of second-wave feminism, and why, on the other hand, such films have proven to be so successful at the box office.

Feminism at the Movies: Understanding Gender in Contemporary Popular Cinema examines the way that contemporary film reflects today’s changing gender roles. The book offers a comprehensive overview of the central issues in feminist film criticism with analyses of over twenty popular contemporary films across a range of genres, such as chick flicks, teen pics, hommecoms, horror, action adventure, indie flicks, and women lawyer films. Contributors explore issues of femininity as well as masculinity, reflecting on the interface of popular cinema with gendered realities and feminist ideas. Topics include the gendered political economy of cinema, the female director as auteur, postfeminist fatherhood, consumer culture, depictions of professional women, transgender, sexuality, gendered violence, and the intersections of gender, race, and ethnic identities.The volume contains essays by following contributors: Taunya Lovell Banks, Heather Brook, Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Michael DeAngelis, Barry Keith Grant, Kelly Kessler, Hannah Hamad, Christina Lane (with Nicole Richter), JaneMaree Maher, David Hansen-Miller (with Rosalind Gill), Gary Needham, Sarah Projansky, Hilary Radner, Rob Schaap, Yael D Sherman, Michele Shreiber, Janet Staiger, Peter Stapleton, Rebecca Stringer, Yvonne Tasker, and Ewa Ziarek.

Feminism at the Movies: Understanding Gender in Contemporary Popular Cinema examines the way that contemporary film reflects today’s changing gender roles. The book offers a comprehensive overview of the central issues in feminist film criticism with analyses of over twenty popular contemporary films across a range of genres, such as chick flicks, teen pics, hommecoms, horror, action adventure, indie flicks, and women lawyer films. Contributors explore issues of femininity as well as masculinity, reflecting on the interface of popular cinema with gendered realities and feminist ideas. Topics include the gendered political economy of cinema, the female director as auteur, postfeminist fatherhood, consumer culture, depictions of professional women, transgender, sexuality, gendered violence, and the intersections of gender, race, and ethnic identities.The volume contains essays by following contributors: Taunya Lovell Banks, Heather Brook, Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Michael DeAngelis, Barry Keith Grant, Kelly Kessler, Hannah Hamad, Christina Lane (with Nicole Richter), JaneMaree Maher, David Hansen-Miller (with Rosalind Gill), Gary Needham, Sarah Projansky, Hilary Radner, Rob Schaap, Yael D Sherman, Michele Shreiber, Janet Staiger, Peter Stapleton, Rebecca Stringer, Yvonne Tasker, and Ewa Ziarek.

Shopping Around investigates the issues of contemporary popular narrative, feminine pleasure, and consumer culture, viewing the permutations of the feminine subject as a textual construction evolved through everyday life. A wide spectrum of texts are examined, exposing the fact that women "read" within a complex and conflicted cultural arena characterized by a significant intertextuality that multiply defines "femininity." Shopping Around raises these issues in the context of everyday cultural practices such as applying make-up, reading magazines, watching television, and working-out, providing a unique introduction to postmodern feminist and cultural theory.

Film Theory Goes to the Movies fills the gap in film theory literature which has failed to analyze high-grossing blockbusters. The contributors in this volume, however, discuss such popular films as TheSilence of the Lambs, Dances With Wolves, Terminator II,Pretty Woman, Truth or Dare, Mystery Train, and JungleFever.They employ a variety of critical approaches, from industry analysis to reception study, to close readings informed by feminist, deconstructive and postmodernist theory, as well as recent developments in African American and gay and lesbian criticism. An important introduction to contemporary Hollywood, this anthology will be of interest to those involved in the fields of film theory, literary theory, popular culture, and women's studies.

In Jane Campion: Cinema, Nation, Identity a diverse group of contributors challenge the view that Campion's body of work lacks coherence or unity to instead examine the important characteristics and themes that underlie it. Editors Hilary Radner, Alistair Fox, and Irène Bessière have compiled rich, original scholarship on Campion's oeuvre to probe issues previously neglected by scholars-like her debt to New Zealand sources and her personal views of family dynamics-and those that benefit from additional insight-such as her place in the feminist filmmaking tradition. This volume also investigates Campion's distinct cinematic style in light of these issues to examine the source of her enduring cross-cultural and international appeal.Contributors in the first section explore the creation of subjectivity and identity in Campion's films, which include well-known works like The Piano and Holy Smoke, to trace the unique perspectives of Campion's characters and Campion herself as director. In the second section, essays analyze Campion's close relationship with literature and argue that the singular vision in her literary adaptations stems from her New Zealand background and her personal mythology. Contributors in the third section argue that while Campion devotes considerable attention to the evocation of feminine internal space, she also uses the symbolic potential of her external physical locations to register what is taking place in the inner life of her characters and reflect their search for personal fulfillment. A final group of essays presents a variety of responses to Campion's films, demonstrating that Campion is a highly personal and idiosyncratic director who nonetheless manages to fascinate viewers across a broad cultural spectrum.Taken together, contributors in Jane Campion: Cinema, Nation, Identity present a compelling analysis of Campion's status as a leading female filmmaker with close attention to her distinctive cinematic style and particular mise-en-scène. The collective nature of this volume will appeal to students and teachers of film, literature, and gender studies, as well as fans of Campion's work.

The essays in Swinging Single attribute the new sexual mores of the era not to its political upheavals but to a confluence of social, cultural, and economic factors that encouraged personal gratification and altered traditionally defined gender roles.'

With the chick flick arguably in decline, film scholars may well ask: what has become of the woman’s film? Little attention has been paid to the proliferation of films, often from the independent sector, that do not sit comfortably in either the category of popular culture or that of high art––films that are perhaps the corollary of the middle-brow novel, or "smart-chick flicks". This book seeks to fill this void by focusing on the steady stream of films about and for women that emerge out of independent American and European cinema, and that are designed to address an international female audience. The new woman's film as a genre includes narratives with strong ties to the woman’s film of classical Hollywood while constituting a new distinctive cycle of female-centered films that in many ways continue the project of second-wave feminism, albeit in a modified form.Topics addressed include: The Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood, 1995); the feature-length films of Nicole Holofcener, 1996-2013; the film roles of Tilda Swinton; Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008); Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen, 2013); Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012), Belle (Amma Asante, 2013), Fifty Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015) and Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake (Sundance Channel, 2013-).

With the chick flick arguably in decline, film scholars may well ask: what has become of the woman’s film? Little attention has been paid to the proliferation of films, often from the independent sector, that do not sit comfortably in either the category of popular culture or that of high art––films that are perhaps the corollary of the middle-brow novel, or "smart-chick flicks". This book seeks to fill this void by focusing on the steady stream of films about and for women that emerge out of independent American and European cinema, and that are designed to address an international female audience. The new woman's film as a genre includes narratives with strong ties to the woman’s film of classical Hollywood while constituting a new distinctive cycle of female-centered films that in many ways continue the project of second-wave feminism, albeit in a modified form.Topics addressed include: The Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood, 1995); the feature-length films of Nicole Holofcener, 1996-2013; the film roles of Tilda Swinton; Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008); Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen, 2013); Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012), Belle (Amma Asante, 2013), Fifty Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015) and Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake (Sundance Channel, 2013-).

This volume brings together an international array of contributors to analyse Greta Gerwig’s unprecedented success, Barbie (2023), exploring how a film released in a moment of industrial crisis for Hollywood became the highest-grossing film directed or co-directed by a woman.Uniting scholars from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, France, Turkey, the UK, and the USA, this volume provides a set of essays that reflect the complexities of what is, in many ways, a fable for our times. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie: Popular Culture, Cinema, and Gender opens with a chapter on the current state of the film industry. Further topics include: the treatment of American girlhood; fashion and feminism; the auteur director; post-indie cinema; queer identities; masculinity; the politics of race, class and gender; contemporary feminisms; consumerism; and the ecology of plastic. As such, the book offers a detailed and nuanced perspective on a benchmark film, produced and distributed by an industry in crisis––the brainchild of a significant director whose star is on the rise.

This volume brings together an international array of contributors to analyse Greta Gerwig’s unprecedented success, Barbie (2023), exploring how a film released in a moment of industrial crisis for Hollywood became the highest-grossing film directed or co-directed by a woman.Uniting scholars from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, France, Turkey, the UK, and the USA, this volume provides a set of essays that reflect the complexities of what is, in many ways, a fable for our times. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie: Popular Culture, Cinema, and Gender opens with a chapter on the current state of the film industry. Further topics include: the treatment of American girlhood; fashion and feminism; the auteur director; post-indie cinema; queer identities; masculinity; the politics of race, class and gender; contemporary feminisms; consumerism; and the ecology of plastic. As such, the book offers a detailed and nuanced perspective on a benchmark film, produced and distributed by an industry in crisis––the brainchild of a significant director whose star is on the rise.

A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema presents a comprehensive collection of original essays addressing all aspects of French cinema from 1990 to the present day. Featuring contributions from an international cast of established and emerging scholars of French cinema, these innovative essays highlight the diversity of French films and filmmaking techniques that have emerged since the New Wave era. Themes and topics covered include the social, political, and cultural contexts of recent French cinema; contemporary filmmakers and performers; genres, cycles, and cinematic forms; gender and sexuality; and emerging trends and innovative new filmmaking forms. Among the French films examined in depth are hit comedies including Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis and Intouchables, blockbusters such as The Crimson Rivers, police films like 36th Precinct, historical films such as Farewell My Queen and Days of Glory, celebrated animated features such as Kirikou and the Sorceress, films representative of the “new French extreme,” such as Romance, Baisemoi, and Trouble Every Day, and numerous auteur films ranging from Bruno Dumont’s Hors Satan and François Ozon’s shorts to Pascale Ferran’s Lady Chatterley and Alain Guiraudie’s L’Inconnu du lac. Combining cutting-edge scholarship with wide-ranging methodological approaches and perspectives, A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of French film, as well as all those interested in the evolution of this celebrated cinematic tradition.

A comprehensive study of Raymond Bellour, one of the most important foundational theorists of Film StudiesOne of the most influential figures in French film philosophy, Raymond Bellour's interests range across cinema, art, literature and philosophy, and his work sits at the critical juncture between the cinematic experience in the period of classical cinema to the new forms of spectatorship ushered in by digital media in the 21st century. With a succinct account of Bellour's oeuvre, this book provides a generous introduction to his ideas on cinema, an annotated bibliography of his work, and a six-chapter translation of a substantial and wide-ranging interview previously unavailable in English. Providing a clear, systematic account of the evolution of Bellour's thought on the nature of cinematic representation, the impact of digital technology and the response of the spectator, this is an essential guide to the work of a major contemporary thinker.Key featuresProvides a clear, systematic exposition of the evolution of Bellour's thought over 60 yearsMakes available in an English translation a hitherto unpublished interview with Bellour from 2015Includes an annotated bibliography, with brief abstracts of all of his books and most important articles

A comprehensive study of Raymond Bellour, one of the most important foundational theorists of Film StudiesOne of the most influential figures in French film philosophy, Raymond Bellour's interests range across cinema, art, literature and philosophy, and his work sits at the critical juncture between the cinematic experience in the period of classical cinema to the new forms of spectatorship ushered in by digital media in the 21st century. With a succinct account of Bellour's oeuvre, this book provides a generous introduction to his ideas on cinema, an annotated bibliography of his work, and a six-chapter translation of a substantial and wide-ranging interview previously unavailable in English. Providing a clear, systematic account of the evolution of Bellour's thought on the nature of cinematic representation, the impact of digital technology and the response of the spectator, this is an essential guide to the work of a major contemporary thinker.Key featuresProvides a clear, systematic exposition of the evolution of Bellour's thought over 60 yearsMakes available in an English translation a hitherto unpublished interview with Bellour from 2015Includes an annotated bibliography, with brief abstracts of all of his books and most important articles