The pantheon of big-budget, commercially successful films encompasses a range of genres, including biblical films, war films, romances, comic-book adaptations, animated features, and historical epics. It discuss the characteristics, history, and modes of distribution and exhibition that unite big-budget pictures, from their beginnings in the late nineteenth century to the present. Moving chronologically, it examines the roots of today's blockbuster in the "feature," "special," "superspecial," "roadshow," "epic," and "spectacle" of earlier eras, with special attention to the characteristics of each type of picture. (Editor).

Greek and Roman epic poetry has always provided creative artists with a rich storehouse of themes: this volume is the first systematic attempt to chart its afterlife across a range of diverse performance traditions, with analysis ranging widely across time, place, genre, and academic and creative disciplines.

With the success of Gladiator, both critics and scholars enthusiastically announced the return of a genre which had lain dormant for thirty years. However, this return raises important new questions which remain unanswered. Why did the epic come back, and why did it fall out of fashion? Are these the same kinds of epics as the 1950s and 60s, or are there aesthetic differences? Can we treat Kingdom of Heaven, 300 and Thor indiscriminately as one genre? Are non-Western histories like Hero and Mongol epics, too? Finally, what precisely do we mean when we talk about the return of the epic film, and why are they back? The Return of the Epic Film offers a fresh way of thinking about a body of films which has dominated our screens for a decade. With contributions from top scholars in the field, the collection adopts a range of interdisciplinary perspectives to explore the epic film in the twenty-first century.

Soon after film came into existence, the term epic was used to describe productions that were lengthy, spectacular, live with action, and often filmed in exotic locales with large casts and staggering budgets. The effort and extravagance needed to mount an epic film paid off handsomely at the box office, for the genre became an immediate favorite with audiences. Epic films survived the tribulations of two world wars and the Depression and have retained the basic characteristics of size and glamour for more than a hundred years. Length was, and still is, one of the traits of the epic, though monolithic three- to four-hour spectacles like Gone with the Wind (1939) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) have been replaced today by such franchises as the Harry Potter films and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Although the form has evolved during many decades of existence, its central elements have been retained, refined, and modernized to suit the tastes of every new generation. The Encyclopedia of Epic Films identifies, describes, and analyzes those films that meet the criteria of the epic—sweeping drama, panoramic landscapes, lengthy adventure sequences, and, in many cases, casts of thousands. This volume looks at the wide variety of epics produced over the last century—from the silent spectacles of D. W. Griffith and biblical melodramas of Cecil B. DeMille to the historical dramas of David Lean and rollercoaster thrillers of Steven Spielberg. Each entry contains: Major personnel behind the camera, including directors and screenwriters Cast and character listings Plot summary Analysis Academy Award wins and nominations DVD and Blu-ray availability Resources for further study This volume also includes appendixes of foreign epics, superhero spectaculars, and epics produced for television, along with a list of all the directors in the book. Despite a lack of overall critical recognition and respect as a genre, the epic remains a favorite of audiences, and this book pays homage to a form of mass entertainment that continues to fill movie theaters. The Encyclopedia of Epic Films will be of interest to academics and scholars, as well as any fan of films made on a grand scale.

After 45 years, Steven Spielberg's Jaws remains the definitive summer blockbuster, a cultural phenomenon with a fierce and dedicated fan base. The Jaws Book: New Perspectives on the Classic Summer Blockbuster is an exciting illustrated collection of new critical essays that offers the first detailed and comprehensive overview of the film's significant place in cinema history. Bringing together established and young scholars, the book includes contributions from leading international writers on popular cinema including Murray Pomerance, Peter Krämer, Sheldon Hall, Nigel Morris and Linda Ruth Williams, and covers such diverse topics as the film's release, reception and canonicity; its representation of masculinity and children; the use of landscape and the ocean; its status as a western; sequels and fan-edits; and its galvanizing impact on the horror film, action movie and contemporary Hollywood itself.

Introduced by a comprehensive account of the factors governing the adaptation of stage plays and musicals in Hollywood from the early 1910s to the mid-to-late 1950s, Screening the Stage consists of a series of chapter-length studies of feature-length films, the plays and musicals on which they were based, and their remakes where pertinent. Founded on an awareness of evolving technologies and industrial practices rather than the tenets of adaptation theory, particular attention is paid to the evolving practices of Hollywood as well as to the purport and structure of the plays and stage musicals on which the film versions were based. Each play or musical is contextualized and summarized in detail, and each film is analyzed so as to pinpoint the ways in which they articulate, modify, or rework the former. Examples range from dramas, comedies, melodramas, musicals, operettas, thrillers, westerns and war film, and include The Squaw Man, The Poor Little Rich Girl, The Merry Widow, 7th Heaven, The Cocoanuts, Waterloo Bridge, Stage Door, I Remember Mama, The Pirate, Dial M for Murder and Attack.

While Israel has seemingly been a minor presence in Hollywood cinema, Reimagining the Promised Land argues that there is a long history of Hollywood deploying images of Israel as a means of articulating an idealized notion of American national identity. This argument is developed through readings of The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956), Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (William Wyler, 1959), Exodus (Otto Preminger, 1960), Cast a Giant Shadow (Melville Shavelson, 1966), Black Sunday (John Frankenheimer, 1977), The Delta Force (Menahem Golan, 1986), and Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005). The mobilization of Israel that pervades this eclectic group of films effectively demonstrates one of the more surreptitious ways in which Hollywood has historically constructed and circulated dominant notions of American national identity. Moreover, in examining the most notable Hollywood representations of the Jewish state, the book offers an informed historical overview of the cultural forces that have contributed to popular understandings within the United States of the state of Israel, Israel's Arab neighbours, and also the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Bible and Cinema: An Introduction is a comprehensive examination of how the Bible has been used and represented in mainstream cinema to develop its plots, characters, and themes. The book considers two general types of films: Bible movies that retell biblical stories, such as the Exodus and the life of Jesus, and Bible-related movies that make use of biblical books, stories, verses, and figures, and Bibles themselves to tell non-biblical, often fictional, narratives. Topics covered include: the contribution of Bible and Bible-related movies to the history of the Bible’s reception; the ways in which filmmakers make use of scripture to address and reflect their own time and place; the Bible as a vehicle through which films can address social and political issues, reflect human experiences and emotions, explore existential issues such as evil and death, and express themes such as destruction and redemption; the role of the Bible as a source of ethics and morality, and how this role is both perpetuated and undermined in a range of contemporary Hollywood films; and film as a medium for experiences of transcendence, and the role of the Bible in creating such experiences. This thoroughly updated second edition includes insightful analysis of films such as Noah, Gods and Men, Mary Magdalene, and The Shawshank Redemption, paying attention to visual and aural elements as well as plot, character, and dialogue. The book also includes pedagogical resources including discussions of film theory, as well as key words and discussion questions. Teachers, students, and anyone interested in the intersection of Bible and cinema will find this an invaluable guide to a growing field.

"This reference provides a review of the academic and popular literature on the relationship between communications and media studies, cinema, advertising, public relations, religion, food tourism, art, sports, technology, culture, marketing, and entertainment practices"--Provided by publisher.

This collection of essays by biblical scholars is the first book-length treatment of the 2014 film Noah, directed by Darren Aronofsky. The film has proved to be of great interest to scholars working on the interface between the Bible and popular culture, not only because it was heralded as the first of a new generation of biblical blockbusters, but also because of its bold, provocative, and yet unusually nuanced approach to the interpretation and use of the Noah tradition, in both its biblical and extra-biblical forms. The book’s chapters, written by both well-established and up-and-coming scholars, engage with and analyze a broad range of issues raised by the film, including: its employment and interpretation of the ancient Noah traditions; its engagement with contemporary environmental themes and representation of non-human animals; its place within the history of cinematic depictions of the flood, status as an ‘epic’, and associated relationship to spectacle; the theological implications of its representation of a hidden and silent Creator and responses to perceived revelation; the controversies surrounding its reception among religious audiences, especially in the Muslim world; and the nature and implications of its convoluted racial and gender politics. Noah as Antihero will be of considerable interest to scholars conducting research in the areas of religion and film, contemporary hermeneutics, reception history, religion and popular culture, feminist criticism, and ecological ethics.