The Human Figure on Film asks what it is we look for when we look at human beings projected on a screen. People have appeared onscreen since film was invented. Nothing could be more common, and yet nothing confounds us more, than a filmed human being. Scholars and critics have attempted to reduce the mystery, creating methodologies that make this figure legible. Some of their efforts form the subject of this book. Each chapter is devoted to a single, central concept—the natural, the pictorial, the institutional, and the fictional—that viewers have used to make sense of what they see. Each concept, in turn, is tied to the work and methods of a particular kind of historical observer: the natural historian (Ray L. Birdwhistell), the aesthete or pictorialist (Victor O. Freeburg), the anthropologist of institutions (Hortense Powdermaker), and the critic of fiction (V. F. Perkins). All of these researchers have their own interests and criteria of understanding, ranging from a microscopic look at gestures to a broad view of characters. Using a combination of critical history, biography, and formal analysis, The Human Figure on Film offers a fresh approach to the problem of figuration in an age of digital cinema. It is, at once, a cross-section of the field of film studies, a handbook of methods, and an inquiry into the nature of inquiry itself.

This book introduces the diverse practices of three non-canonical practitioners: David MacDougall, Desire Machine Collective and Kumar Shahani. It offers analysis of their documentary methods and aesthetics, exploring how their oeuvres constitute a critical and self-reflexive approach to documentary-making in India.

This analysis of images of science and technology from popular films of the 1980s and 1990s argues that films as diverse as the science fiction film Jurassic Park contribute to popular understandings of science and technology.

Is theater really dead? Does the theater, as its champions insist, really provide a more intimate experience than film? If so, how have changes in cinematic techniques and technologies altered the relationship between stage and film? What are the inherent limitations of representing three-dimensional spaces in a two-dimensional one, and vice versa? American Drama in the Age of Filmexamines the strengths and weaknesses of both the dramatic and cinematic arts to confront the standard arguments in the film-versus-theater debate. Using widely known adaptations of ten major plays, Brietzke seeks to highlight the inherent powers of each medium and draw conclusions not just about how they differ, but how they ought to differ as well. He contrasts both stage and film productions of, among other works, David Mamet'sGlengarry Glen Ross, Sam Shepard'sTrue West, Edward Albee'sWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Margaret Edson'sWit, Tony Kushner'sAngels in America, Tennessee Williams'sCat on a Hot Tin Roof, Arthur Miller'sDeath of a Salesman, and August Wilson'sThe Piano Lesson. In reading the dual productions of these works, Brietzke finds that cinema has indeed stolen much of theater's former thunder, by making drama more intimate, and visceral than most live events. But theater is still vital and matters greatly, Brietzke argues, though for reasons that run counter to many of the virtues traditionally attributed to it as an art form, such as intimacy and spontaneity. Brietzke seeks to revitalize perceptions of theater by challenging those common pieties and offering a new critical paradigm, one that champions spectacle and simultaneity as the most, not least, important elements of drama.

The Professional Approach to Sculpting The Human Figure is the first book by Andrew Sinclair MRSS SWAC, recognised as a master of world-class figurative sculpture. It is based on Andrew’s ground-breaking Sinclair Method, as taught at The Sculpture School, which completely transforms the building and creation of Contemporary Realist sculpture. This method is revolutionising the approach to sculpture, also acting as a powerful source of knowledge, enabling students searching for excellence to become professional masters of their art. This book deals with the foundations of good figurative sculpture and offers a profound understanding of measurement, anatomy, design and composition in an easy to understand format that will inspire established sculptors and beginners alike. So if you want to raise your game and lift your sculpture talents to a professional level – this book is dynamite! Consider it food for the sculptural soul.

"This is a wise and wonderful book, which among other things provides a novelist's eloquent insider's perspective on the transformation of one of her books into a film. Thirty years ago Stanley Cavell published The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film, which opened up an intellectual highway between philosophy and cinema. Now at long last Mary Snyder's book accomplishes a parallel clearing of the way between film making, the art of the novel, and literary and critical theory Every page is bubbling with creative, theoretical, and pedagogical insights. Her intertextual readings of a score of literature-to-film adaptations are priceless in themselves. I only wish that the title of the book had been taken from her chapter, `The Fascination Never Ends'." Michael Payne, Professor of English Emeritus, Bucknell University Critical questions specific to film adaptations need to be not only developed but established. These questions, or approaches, must be accessible to students, including those students who are not yet educationally sophisticated enough to digest purely theoretical material. Analyzing Literature-to-Film Adaptations: A Novelist's Exploration and Guide demonstrates an exploration into film adaptation from a novelist's perspective, comprising a study of literary creation as well as the process/product of adaptation and moving into the author's collaboration with a screenwriter, which ultimately becomes a journey to understand and identify the implications of literature-to-film adaptation and the complexities and problems it raises. Drawing from both classic and contemporary film adaptations (Frankenstein, The Hours, The Constant Gardener, Children of Men, The Lovely Bones, Away from Her), the book puts forth an understanding of film and film analysis, as well as addresses literary analysis. The crux of the book, however, lies in its introduction to an academic means for critical analysis of film adaptations.

Charts new directions for interdisciplinary research on refugee writing and representationPlaces refugee imaginaries at the centre of interdisciplinary exchange, demonstrating the vital new perspectives on refugee experience available in humanities researchBrings together leading research in literary, performance, art and film studies, digital and new media, postcolonialism and critical race theory, transnational and comparative cultural studies, history, anthropology, philosophy, human geography and cultural politicsThe refugee has emerged as one of the key figures of the twenty-first-century. This book explores how refugees imagine the world and how the world imagines them. It demonstrates the ways in which refugees have been written into being by international law, governmental and non-governmental bodies and the media, and foregrounds the role of the arts and humanities in imagining, historicising and protesting the experiences of forced migration and statelessness. Including thirty-two newly written chapters on representations by and of refugees from leading researchers in the field, Refugee Imaginaries establishes the case for placing the study of the refugee at the centre of contemporary critical enquiry.

This book investigates the formations of masculinity in Hungarian cinema after the fall of communism and explores some of the cultural phenomena of the years following the 1989 regime change. The films explored offer a unique perspective encompassing two entirely different worlds: state socialism and neoliberal capitalism. The films suggest that Eastern Europe is somehow different than its western counterpart and that its subjects are marked by what they went through before and after 1989. These films are all remembering, interpreting, picturing, marketing and trying to come to terms with this difference—with the memory and effects of state-socialism. In looking closely at the films’ male figures, one may not only get a glimpse of the dramatic changes Eastern European societies went through after the fall of communism but also see the brave new world of global neoliberal capitalism through the eyes of the Eastern European newcomers.

Working at the intersection of religion and ever-shifting political, economic and social environments, Iranian cinema has produced some of the most critically lauded films in the world today. The first volume in the Directory of World Cinema: Iran turned the spotlight on the award-winning cinema of Iran, with particular attention to the major genres and movements, historical turning points and prominent figures that have helped shape it. Considering a wide range of genres, including Film Farsi, New Wave, war film, art house film and women’s cinema, the book was greeted with enthusiasm by film studies scholars, students working on alternative or national cinema and fans and aficionados of Iranian film. Building on the momentum and influence of its predecessor, Directory of World Cinema: Iran 2 will be welcomed by all seeking an up-to-date and comprehensive guide to Iranian cinema.