Stefano Baschiera - Böcker

In its heyday from the late 1950s until the early 1980s Italian horror cinema was characterised by an excess of gore, violence and often incoherent plot-lines. Films about zombies, cannibals and psychopathic killers ensured there was no shortage of controversy, and the genre presents a seemingly unpromising nexus of films for sustained critical analysis. But Italian horror cinema with all its variations, subgenres and filoni remains one of the most recognisable and iconic genre productions in Europe, achieving cult status worldwide. One of the manifestations of a rich production landscape in Italian popular cinema after the Second World War, Italian horror was also characterised by its imitation of foreign models and the transnational dimension of its production agreements, as well as by its international locations and stars.This collection brings together for the first time a range of contributions aimed at a new understanding of the genre, investigating the different phases in its history, the peculiarities of the production system, the work of its most representative directors (Mario Bava and Dario Argento) and the wider role it has played within popular culture.

Although film and media studies have widely engaged with the different aspects of social space, domestic space in film has rarely been studied in its multiple dimensions. Drawing on a broad range of theoretical disciplines – and with case studies of directors such as Chantal Akerman, Agnès Varda, Claire Denis, Todd Haynes, Amos Gitai, Martin Ritt, John Ford, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine – this book goes beyond the representational approach to the analysis of domestic space in cinema, in order to look at it as a dispositif. Adopting this innovative two-fold approach that couples representation and dispositif, the home is studied as an architecture, as the place that embodies, defines and perpetuates the family history, as the milieu of gender and generational struggle, as well as the first site where manifestations of power unfold. All chapters contribute to explore, unpack the complexities and expand on the richness encapsulated in the notion of domesticity and dwelling in its fascinating relation to moving images.

Film and Domestic Space: Architectures, Representations, DispositifEdited by Stefano Baschiera and Miriam De RosaAlthough film and media studies have widely engaged with the different aspects of social space, domestic space in film has rarely been studied in its multiple dimensions. Drawing on a broad range of theoretical disciplines and with case studies of directors such as Chantal Akerman, Agnes Varda, Claire Denis, Todd Haynes, Amos Gitai, Martin Ritt, John Ford, Ila Beka and Louise Lemoine this book goes beyond the representational approach to the analysis of domestic space in cinema, in order to look at it as a dispositif. Adopting this innovative two-fold approach that couples representation and dispositif, the home is studied as an architecture, as the place that embodies, defines and perpetuates the family history, as the milieu of gender and generational struggle, as well as the first site where manifestations of power unfold. All chapters contribute to explore, unpack the complexities, and expand on the richness encapsulated in the notion of domesticity and dwelling in its fascinating relation to moving images.

World Cinema on Demand brings together diverse contributions by leading film and media scholars to examine world cinema’s dialogue with the transformations that took place during 2010-2014, engaging directly with ongoing debates surrounding national cinema, transnational identity, and cultural globalization, as well as ideas about genre, fandom and cinephilia. The contributions look at individual national patterns of online distribution, engaging with archives, SVODS and torrent communities. The essays also investigate the cross-cultural presence of world cinema in non-domestic online markets (such as Europe’s, for example). As a result, the volume sheds light on geo-politically specific issues of film circulation, consumption and preservation within a range of culturally diverse filmmaking contexts, including case studies from India, Nigeria, Mexico and China. In this way, the collection maps the impact of different online formats of distribution in the understanding of World Cinema, underlining the links between distribution and media provisions as well as engaging with new forms of intermediation.