Visar resultat för..."BFI Publishing"

This work maps the rich, varied cinema of Eastern Europe, Russia and the former USSR. Over 200 entries cover a variety of topics spanning a century of endeavour and turbulent history from Czech animation to Soviet montage, from the silent cinemas dating back to World War I through to the varied responses to the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. It includes entries on actors and actresses, film festivals, studios, genres, directors, film movements, critics, producers and technicians, taking the coverage up to the late 1990s. In addition to the historical material of key figures like Eisenstein and Wadja, the editors provide separate accounts of the trajectory of the cinemas of Eastern Europe and of Russia in the wake of the collapse of communism.

James Naremore's study of Max Ophuls' classic 1948 melodrama, Letter from an Unknown Woman, not only pays tribute to Ophuls but also discusses the backgrounds and typical styles of the film’s many contributors--among them Viennese author Stephan Zweig, whose 1922 novella was the source of the picture; producer John Houseman, an ally of Ophuls who nevertheless made questionable changes to what Ophuls had shot; screenwriter Howard Koch; music composer Daniéle Amfitheatrof; designers Alexander Golitzen and Travis Banton; and leading actors Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan, whose performances were central to the film’s emotional effect. Naremore also traces the film's reception history, from its middling box office success and mixed early reviews, exploring why it has been a work of exceptional interest to subsequent generations of both aesthetic critics and feminist theorists. Lastly, Naremore provides an in-depth critical appreciation of the film, offering nuanced appreciation of specific details of mise-en-scene, camera movement, design, sound, and performances, integrating this close analyses into an overarching analysis of Letter’s “recognition plot;” a trope in which the recognition of a character’s identity creates dramatic intensity or crisis. Naremore argues that Letter's use of recognition is one of the most powerful in Hollywood cinema, and contrasts it with what we find in Zweig's novella.

In this follow up to their original 100 Cult Films volume, Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik provide a guide to one hundred more incredible films, from the 1911 Italian silent Dante's Inferno to Ti West's horror trilogy X, Pearl (2022) and MaXXXine (2024).This richly illustrated guide addresses the work of filmmakers including Stanley Kubrick, Paul Verhoeven, Ana Lily Amirpour, Stephanie Rothman, Rob Reiner and Dario Argento, with movies hailing from Iran to Brazil, South Korea to Sweden, Japan to the USA, and from the high North to the Australian outback. 100 Cult Films: The Sequel presents an alchemy of genres including science-fiction, romance, horror, musical, vampire, comedy and action, and through the debates and controversies that surround them raises issues about identity, home, belonging, exoticism, censorship, and what it means to be truly 'weird'.By presenting 100 films that confirm and interrogate the notion of what makes a film a ‘cult film’, 100 Cult Films: The Sequel reignites the conversation about cult cinema while affirming its foundations in today’s volatile and vibrant cultural climate.

Set against the turbulent backdrop of the UK miners’ strike (1984–5), Billy Elliot (2000) follows eleven-year-old Billy as he pursues his dream of becoming a ballet dancer. Hailed for its heartfelt portrayal of working class life and its powerful challenge to gender stereotypes, Stephen Daldry’s film is recognised today as a significant contribution to the tradition of British social-realist cinema.James Leggott’s insightful study explores the creative forces behind Billy Elliot’s development, drawing from interviews with many of the core production team, such as the screenwriter Lee Hall, the choreographer Peter Darling and the composer Stephen Warbeck. Leggott identifies influences from the worlds of theatre, dance, photography and music, including inspirations specific to the North East of England, and calls attention to the film’s innate musicality in its bold and playful combinations of soundtrack and action, with songs by Marc Bolan and T. Rex, The Clash and The Jam among others. Tracing Billy Elliot’s global impact and its remarkable afterlife as a hit stage production, Leggott makes a case for the film’s enduring significance in British cinema history.

Britain, 2019. The secluded rural village of Harrowvale holds a dark past: years earlier, on a farm bordering the woods, a cult—led by the charismatic Jasper Hillman—sought to escape civilisation and find purity in the old ways, namely worshipping an ancient deity called Thistlebone. The cult’s pagan beliefs grew so deranged that they kidnapped a young girl, Avril Eason, with the intention of sacrificing her. But Avril escaped… and now, so many years later, she returns to Harrowvale to face the demons of her past. Haunting and visceral, the Complete Thistlebone collects volumes 1-3 of the acclaimed folk horror series by T.C. Eglington and Simon Davis.

Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003) brings two Americans together in Tokyo, each experiencing a personal crisis. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a recent graduate in philosophy, faces an uncertain professional future, while Bob Harris (Bill Murray), an established celebrity, questions his choices at midlife. Both are distant — emotionally and spatially — from their spouses. They are lost until they develop an intimate connection. In the film’s poignant, famously ambiguous closing scene, they find each other, only to separate.In this close look at the multi-award-winning film, Suzanne Ferriss mirrors Lost in Translation’s structuring device of travel: her analysis takes the form of a trip, from planning to departure. She details the complexities of filming (a 27-day shoot with no permits in Tokyo), explores Coppola’s allusions to fine art, subtle colour palette and use of music over words, and examines the characters’ experiences of the Park Hyatt Tokyo and excursions outside, together and alone. She also re-evaluates the film in relation to Coppola’s other features, as the product of an established director with a distinctive cinematic signature: ‘Coppolism’. Fundamentally, Ferriss argues that Lost in Translation is not only a cinema classic, but classic Coppola too.

In this compelling study, Daisuke Miyao explores Jean-Pierre Melville's cult 1967 thriller Le Samouraï, a film that unfolds in a coolly stylised Paris where the paths of a contract killer, Jef Costello (Alain Delon), and the police commissaire pursuing him (François Périer) fatally intersect.Despite its title, Le Samouraï, is not a sword-clashing tale of feudal Japan. Rather, Miyao suggests that the film's philosophical framework draws on both existentialism and the samurai moral philosophy of bushido, or 'the way of the warrior', and considers how these philosophies may help explain Jef Costello's identity crisis and his concluding act of self-annihilation. In a close analysis of Melville's technical and aesthetic decisions, Miyao highlights the film's use of close-ups to convey or mask emotion, the play of light and shadow, and the function of flashbacks and dream sequences in the narrative, as well as the meanings of Costello's pet bullfinch.Setting Le Samouraï within the shifting landscape of post-war French cinema, Miyao traces its dialogue with Hollywood film noir and Japanese art cinema, particularly Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), suggesting that both genres informed and influenced Melville's film-making.Finally, Miyao discusses the film’s enduring legacy, from Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) to Yoko M.’s 2020 novella Jef, a prequel to the film.

Made on a low budget, The Terminator was one of the most influential films of the 1980s. Combining explosive special effects and an intricate time-travel plot, it set Arnold Schwarzenegger on the road to superstardom and allowed its director, James Cameron, to go on to make some of the most expensive films of all time. The Terminator quickly found a cult following who appreciated its deadpan humour, comic-book violence and elaborate variations on standard science fiction themes. Resolutely populist, accomplished and instantly memorable, The Terminator has dramatically outlived its humble beginnings. Sean French’s insightful study traces the film’s production history, its sources and the extent of its influence. He argues that The Terminator’s visual flair, stylised acting and choreographed violence are so compelling not so much because they offer intellectual rewards but because they traffic in the darker, more visceral pleasures of moviegoing.In his foreword to this new edition, Sean French reflects on Terminator sequels and reboots, suggesting that the original film has more in common with the gritty visions of the New Hollywood than present-day action blockbusters.

Drawing on Daphne du Maurier's short story and contemporary newspaper reports of bird attacks in California, Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) featured Tippi Hedren in her first starring role. Camille Paglia's compelling study considers the film's aesthetic, technical and mythical qualities, and analyses its depiction of gender and family relations. A film about anxiety, sexual power and the violence of nature, it is quintessential Hitchcock.Camille Paglia's foreword to this new edition reflects upon the relationship between Hitchcock and his leading lady Hedren in the light of recent debates about male power, female agency and the #MeToo movement.

With its narrative of emotionless alien duplicates replacing average folk, Don Siegel’s 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers was the first post-war horror film to locate the monstrous in the everyday, thus marking it as a pivotal moment in American horror film history four years before Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Barry Keith Grant’s compelling study traces Invasion’s journey from ‘B’ movie thriller to an acknowledged classic of American cinema. Grant unpacks the film’s engagement with numerous issues brewing in post-war US society, including the Cold War, McCarthyism and the changing dynamics of gender relations.Grant provides an account of Invasion’s fraught production history, the distinctive contributions of key crew members, and discusses the three remakes it has inspired. He illustrates how Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ enduring popularity derives from its central metaphor for the monstrous, which has proven as flexible as that of the vampire and the zombie.In his afterword to this new edition, Grant addresses contemporary anxieties around AI and human ‘replacement’, bringing in such recent films as Companion (2025), The Creator (2023) and Ex Machina (2014).

"It may be the most sophisticated political thriller ever made in Hollywood," film critic Pauline Kael wrote of John Frankenheimer's terrifying 1962 political thriller about an American serviceman brainwashed in Korea and made into an assassin. Sophisticated to be sure, it's also a headlong fall through the looking-glass of American politics and the most deeply prophetic film of the second half of the American century. As Greil Marcus reconstructs the drama, The Manchurian Candidate is a movie in which the director and actors, including Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury in an Academy Award-nominated performance, were suddenly capable of anything, beyond any expectations. This edition includes a new foreword highlighting the movie's terrifying contemporary relevance in the age of Trump and Russian interference in the US Presidential election.

A comprehensive guide to science fiction films, which analyzes and contextualizes the most important examples of the genre, from Un voyage dans la lune (1902), to The Road (2009).

Ground-breaking in its departure from its predecessors, When Harry Met Sally (1989) established classic romantic comedy themes and tropes still being employed today. Placing the film in its historical, social and generic contexts, Tamar Jeffers-McDonald explores how writer Nora Ephron and director Rob Reiner used structure, filmic devices, music and classic romcom concepts in innovative new ways. In her fresh and timely appraisal of this definitive, much-loved classic, Jeffers McDonald reflects on the film's enduring legacy and influence on popular culture to give readers a wider perspective on the continuing evolution and importance of the romcom genre.

In Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995), two young lovers, the American Jesse (Ethan Hawke), and the Frenchwoman Celine (Julie Delphy), meet on a train travelling across Europe and spend a magical night together in Vienna before parting at dawn. Filmed in nine-year intervals, the film’s sequels Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013) forge an unexpected trilogy brimming with longing, second chances and resentments as the couple meet again and build a relationship.Lucas Hilderbrand reflects on the experience of falling in love with, living with and having one’s own life shaped by the Before trilogy. Tracing the story of the films’ production, he considers the contribution of the leading actors, particularly Delphy, to their screenplays. He offers a close reading of each of the Before films, considering the extent to which they operate beyond the generic norms of romantic comedy or melodrama, incorporating aspects of realism and emotional authenticity through their location shooting, long takes and near-real time temporality. Treating the films as time capsules of their respective historical moments, Hilderbrand considers how evolving politics and technologies impact or interrupt the characters’ intimacy, while placing the trilogy in conversation with other films. All the while, he pays attention to the trilogy’s subjective impact on viewers across its eighteen-year timespan – and its continuing afterglow.

Don't Look Now, released in 1973, confirmed director Nicolas Roeg as one of themost stylish and innovative British directors of the postwar period. Adaptedfrom a short story by Daphne du Maurier, it is both a complex study of howpeople come to terms with grief and a chilling tale of murder set among thecanals and churches of Venice. Featuring telling performances by Julie Christieand Donald Sutherland as the couple whose daughter has tragically died,Don't Look Now depicts the way in which the macabre and the everyday areintertwined.In his lucid, subtle account, Mark Sanderson describes the collaborationbetween director and actors that sustained the film's emotional richness.He returns to du Maurier's original text and to the traditions of Gothic writingthat underpin Don't Look Now's combination of horror, melodrama and blackcomedy. Sanderson examines the film's intricate visual style, uncovering theway in which particular motifs are used to amplify its depiction of two terribledeaths. He finds compensation for the film's grimly fatalistic view of life in itscelebration of sexual relationships and the power of recollection. The bookincludes an exclusive and in-depth interview with Roeg as well as rare andunpublished comments from Christie.In his foreword to this special edition, published to celebrate the 20thanniversary of the BFI Film Classics series, Jason Wood places Don't Look Nowin the context of Roeg's film-making careeer, and draws upon Roeg's revealinginsights into the film's production.

TRANSLATED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT CHANDLERMoscow in the 1930s is a symbol of Soviet paradise; a fairy-tale capital where, in Stalin's words, 'life has become better, life has become merrier". Beautiful, passionate, Moscow Chestnova bears her captial's name, and seeks the happiness it promises. She flits from man to man, fascinated by the brave new world supposedly taking shape around her, on a quest for the better life. This anarchic satire is accompanied by related works - short stories, an essay and a screenplay - and through Robert Chandler's acclaimed new translations Platonov's extraordinary prose and original vision can at last be experienced in full.

This major study of the contemporary French cinema includes a survey of the French film industry, chapters on major genres such as political and documentary cinema, women's cinema, comedy, the thriller and the history film, studies of eleven of the most significant post-1968 film-makers, together with extensive filmographies and a bibliography. Throughout the volume, discussion is related to the broader context of French culture and society with particular emphasis on the politics of representation, the interpretation of history, the nature of the popular issues of class and gender and the legacy of May 1968.

When the first edition of this book appeared, at the beginning of the 1980s, the age of the Hollywood musical seemed to be over. Fred and Ginger had long since hung up their dancing shoes, and audiences had lost their taste for the great MGM extravaganzas. But since then the musical has undergone a rebirth, with the rise of teen musicals such as Dirty Dancing and Flashdance. In a chapter specially written for this new edition of her book, Jane Feuer shows how this new development in the genre relates to important changes in the cinema audience itself.

Discover films that dared to be different, risked reputations and put careers in jeopardy. This is what happens when filmmakers take tradition and rip it up.  FilmQuake introduces 50 movies that shook the cinematic world, telling the fascinating stories behind their creation, reception and legacy.From unbelievable developments in technology (Citizen Kane, 1941) to feminist triumphs (Wanda, 1970); films that kickstarted New Queer Cinema (Paris is Burning, 1990) to others that challenged lawmakers (A Short Film About Killing, 1988) – FilmQuake presents the movies that questioned boundaries, challenged the status quo and made shockwaves we are still feeling today.From film's first innovators, people like the Lumière brothers, whose short film of a train arriving was reported to have terrified audiences in 19th century Paris, through iconoclasts like Sergei Eisenstein and Luis Buñuel, to titans of 20th century cinema like Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard, discover the stories behind the films which incontrovertably changed the course of cinema forever.Into the modern day, this book examines how filmmakers have addressed themes of prejudice and inequality, from the Black Lives Matter movement and Jordan Peele's unmissable Get Out to Bong Joon-ho's cutting study of the lives of the wealthy in Parasite, as well as innovative new cinematic techniques emerging in films like 28 Days Later and Blair Witch Project.In telling the history of cinema through the works that were truly disruptive, and explaining the context in which each was created, FilmQuake demonstrates the heart of modern film, which is to constantly question boundaries and challenge expectation.This book is from the Culture Quake series, which looks into iconic moments of culture which truly created paradigm shifts in their respective fields.Also available is ArtQuake, which tells the stories of 50 pivotal works that challenged consensus and broke daring new ground in the world of art, inspiring shock and scandal as they did so, but ultimately cementing themselves as truly great works of modern art.

Part of the "NFT/BFI Film Classics" series, this is the story of life in a New York slum school, where young hoodlums develop their crude ways, and their teachers fight a vain and losing battle to bring a semblance of decency and honesty into their lives.

___________________________The classic psychological thriller that was adapted into a film by Alfred Hitchcock, and is now a major BBC drama___________________________‘Miss Froy?’ repeated the baroness. ‘I do not know anyone who has that name.’Exhausted after her vacation in Europe, the young socialite Iris Carr is set for a return to England. Aboard the train, Iris is glad to have the company of the elderly Miss Froy – the only other passenger she can tolerate.But when Iris wakes up after a long rest, Miss Froy has vanished. Suspecting foul play, Iris is suspicious of the strange passengers surrounding her, most of whom cannot understand her. Those who can, however, have serious doubts that such a ‘Miss Froy’ ever existed...Iris’ dream vacation soon turns into a nightmare voyage back to England, forcing her to explore the uncharted territories of both her surroundings and her own mind.

The number-one Sunday Times bestseller'Walters's book - also well written - has moments of Alan Bennett warmth' SUNDAY TIMES'This is a humorous and, at times, moving read from this much-loved actress' WOMAN AND HOME'I was enthralled by her memoirs ... a celebrity memoir which is actually worth reading as a work of literature' AN Wilson, READER'S DIGESTHer mum wanted her to be a nurse so that is what Julie did.But in her heart she had always wanted to be an actress and soon she was on stage at the local theatre in Liverpool. Her career snowballed with highlights that include Educating Rita, Billy Elliot, Harry Potter, Acorn Antiques, Dinner Ladies and Mamma Mia! She has been nominated for two Oscars, been awarded multiple BAFTAs and a Golden Globe, plus been honoured with a DBE. This is the heart-warming and funny story of that journey.

A new kind of film emerged from Hollywood in the early 1940s, thrillers that derived their plots from the hard-boiled school of crime fiction but with a style all their own. Appearing in 1944, 'Double Indemnity 'was a key film in the definition of the genre that came to be known as film noir. Its script creates two unforgettable criminal characters: the cynically manipulative Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) and the likeable but amoral Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray). Billy Wilder's brilliant direction enmeshes them in chiaroscuro patterns, the bright California sun throwing shadows of venetian blinds across dusty rooms, shafts of harsh lamplight cutting through the night. Richard Schickel traces in fascinating detail the genesis of the film: its literary origins in the crime fiction of the 1930s, the difficult relations between Wilder and his scriptwriter Raymond Chandler, the casting of a reluctant Fred MacMurray, the late decision to cut from the film the expensively shot final sequence of Neff's execution. This elegantly written account, copiously illustrated, confirms a new the status of 'Double Indemnity' as an undisputed classic.

John Ford's Stagecoach, starring John Wayne in the part that made him a star, remains the most famous Western ever made. Shedding new light on an old favourite, this is an enjoyable account of how the film got made, combined with a careful scene-by-scene analysis, a wealth of illustrations and the most complete credits yet assembled.

Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929) was the first major British sound film. Tom Ryall examines its unusual production history, and places it in the context of Hitchcock's other British films of the period. Is is, Ryall argues, both a considerable work of art in itself, and also one of the first to display those touches we now think of as typically Hitchcockian: a blonde heroine in jeopardy, a surprise killing, some brilliantly manipulated suspense, and a last-reel chase around a familiar public landmark (in this case, the British Museum). There's also a cameo appearance by the director himself, as a harassed traveller on the London Underground.

Greed is a legendary film begun in 1923. It was to have been Erich von Stroheim's masterwork, but his colossal ambitions were to be his undoing. His obsession with realistic detail and determination to extract every ounce of drama from his source, Frank Norris's novel McTeague, stretched the shooting schedule to inordinate lengths, resulting in a film which ran for over seven hours. Jonathan Rosenbaum has made a meticulous study of all the sources. In a fascinating piece of detective work, he reconstructs the history of one of cinema's greatest ruins.

Les Enfants du paradis, a magnificent picaresque saga of Parisian street life and popular culture, has been called the greatest film ever made. Completed during the Occupation, it nevertheless boasted the largest set ever to have been built in a French studio, a crowd of extras and, under the direction of Marcel Carné, some of the most accomplished technicians and actors available (including Arletty and Jean-Louis Barrault as the central couple doomed to remain apart).Jill Forbes examines how, at a time of crisis, the film reimagined the history of France. Although Les Enfants du paradis is escapist, even fantastic, Forbes finds in it a radical, counter-cultural sensibility concerned with destabilising social hierarchies and prescribed sexual roles and questioning the opposition between life and art. Vibrant, joyous but also touched by melancholy, the film combines the traditions of high culture and popular theatre to remarkable effect.

Wild Strawberries (1958) is probably Ingmar Bergman's most personal film and one which explores his relation to the history of Swedish cinema. Philip and Kersti French give a detailed account of Bergman's powerful and intense direction of the film. They set the film firmly in the context of Swedish life and culture. The authors also trace connections with the plays of August Strindberg, and the paintings of Edvard Munch and Carl Larsson.

Made in 1951, High Noon rapidly became one of the most celebrated and controversial Hollywood dramas of the post-war period. A grave, taut western about community and violence, High Noon collected a clutch of Oscars, helped to re-establish the dwindling fortunes of its star, Gary Cooper, and confirmed the stature of director Fred Zinnemann and producer Stanley Kramer. The film was also a flashpoint for the conflict between the US film industry and McCarthyite anti-communism: writer and associate producer Carl Foreman was hounded off the production and blacklisted. Phillip Drummond offers a detailed account of High Noon's troubled production context and its early public reception, along with career-summaries of the key participants. He analyzes the dramatic organization of the film with close reference to the original short story and Carl Foreman's script, and concludes with an invaluable overview of the long history of critical debates, focusing on questions of social identity and gender. The result is a fresh and nuanced reading of a major classic.Phillip Drummond is Lecturer in Film and Media Studies at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK.