John Belton – författare

This classic anthology provides essential models for analyzing sound stylistics through the detailed study of critical sound films. Elisabeth Weis and John Belton carefully curate major essays from the world's most respected film historians, aestheticians, and theorists, including Douglas Gomery, Barry Salt, Rick Altman, Mary Ann Doane, S. M. Eisenstein, V. I. Pudovkin, Rene Clair, Bela Belazs, Siegfried Kracauer, Christian Metz, David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Noel Burch, and Arthur Knight. Their selections recount the innovations and triumphs of Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Rouben Mamoulian, Dziga Vertov, Robert Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, and Francis Ford Coppola, among many others, and explicate the techniques and practices of sound filmmaking from initial recordings to final theater playback. Film Sound is the ideal companion for anyone seeking both a comprehensive introduction to the form and a rich survey of its historical and global evolution.

This text examines the two-way process of action and reaction by which films shape the identity of a society, its culture and its sense of nationhood; and, in turn, how films are themselves shaped by these forces and matrices. The nation here is America, in which films both effect and reflect changes in the national self-image, the transformation from one kind of nation to another: from an agrarian to an industrial economy; from a nation of producers to one of consumers; from a community of individuals to a mass society.

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is one of the icons of American filmmaking. A perfect example of Hollywood cinema at its best, it is an engaging piece of entertainment as well as a fascinating meditation on the nature of the film itself. A suspense thriller about a chair-bound observer who suspects his neighbour of murdering his wife, the narrative becomes the vehicle for Hitchcock's exploration of the basic ingredients of cinema, from voyeurism and dreamlike fantasy to the process of narration itself. This volume provides a fresh analysis of Rear Window, which is examined from a variety of perspectives in a series of essays published here for the first time. Providing an account of the actual production of the film, as well as feminist and cultural readings of it, it also demonstrates the influence of Rear Window on a wide range of filmmakers, including Antonioni, De Palma, and Coppola.

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is one of the icons of American filmmaking. A perfect example of Hollywood cinema at its best, it is an engaging piece of entertainment as well as a fascinating meditation on the nature of the film itself. A suspense thriller about a chair-bound observer who suspects his neighbour of murdering his wife, the narrative becomes the vehicle for Hitchcock's exploration of the basic ingredients of cinema, from voyeurism and dreamlike fantasy to the process of narration itself. This volume provides a fresh analysis of Rear Window, which is examined from a variety of perspectives in a series of essays published here for the first time. Providing an account of the actual production of the film, as well as feminist and cultural readings of it, it also demonstrates the influence of Rear Window on a wide range of filmmakers, including Antonioni, De Palma, and Coppola.

Movies and Mass Culture looks at the ways in which American identity shapes and is shaped by motion pictures. Movies serve not only as texts that document who we think we are or were, but they also reflect changes in our self-image, tracing the transformation from one kind of America to another. They assist audiences in negotiating major changes in identity, carrying them across difficult periods of cultural transition so that a more or less coherent national identity again emerges. Films thus help their viewers to span the gaps and fissures that cultural changes cause, allowing passage over any disjointedness that in some way might disrupt our sense of what we believe in as a nation. This volume examines this process, illustrating the ways in which films aided America's transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy; from a nation of producers to one of consumers; and from a community of individuals to a mass society.

American Cinema/American Culture introduces the reader to basic issues related to the phenomenon of American cinema. It looks at American film history from the 1890s through today, but it does not always explore this history in a purely chronological way. In fact, it is not (strictly speaking) a history. Rather, it is a cultural history, which focuses more on topics and issues than on what happened when. American Cinema/American Culture reflects the crucial role movies play in the process of identity-formation. Films not only serve as texts that document who we think we are or were, they also reflect changes in the nation’s self-image, tracing the transformation from one kind of America to another.