Nelmes - Introduction to Film Studies

Introduction to Film Studies, 5 th edition

Introduction to Film Studies is a comprehensive textbook for students of cinema.

This completely revised and updated fifth edition guides students through the key issues and concepts in film studies, traces the historical development of film and introduces some of the worlds key national cinemas. A range of theories and theorists are presented from Formalism to Feminism, from Eisenstein to Deleuze. Each chapter is written by a subject specialist, including two new authors for the fifth edition. A wide range of films are analysed and discussed. It is lavishly illustrated with film stills and production shots, in full colour throughout. Reviewed widely by teachers in the field and with a foreword by Bill Nichols, it will be essential reading for any introductory student of film and media studies or the visual arts worldwide.

Key features of the fifth edition are:

• updated coverage of a wide range of concepts, theories and issues in film studies
• in-depth discussion of the contemporary film industry and technological changes
• new chapters on Film and Technology and Latin American Cinema
• new case studies on films such as District 9, Grizzly Man, Amores Perros, Avatar, Made in Dagenham and many others
• marginal key terms, notes, cross-referencing
• suggestions for further reading, further viewing and a comprehensive glossary and bibliography
• a new, improved companion website including popular case studies and chapters from previous editions (including chapters on German Cinema and the French New Wave), links to supporting sites, clips, questions and useful resources. Go to www.routledge.com/cw/nelmes for more details

Individual chapters include: The industrial contexts of film production Contemporary film technology Before getting to the bigger picture Film form and narrative Spectator, audience and response Cinematic authorship and the film auteur Star studies: text, pleasure, identity Approaches to film genre The documentary form The language of animation Gender and film Lesbian and gay cinema Spectacle, stereotypes and films of the African diaspora British cinema Indian cinema Latin American cinema Soviet montage cinema of the 1920s

Contributors: Linda Craig, Lalitha Gopalan, Terri Francis, Chris Jones, Mark Joyce, Searle Kochberg, Lawrence Napper, Jill Nelmes, Patrick Phillips, Suzanne Speidel, Paul Ward, Paul Watson, Paul Wells and William Whittington

Jill Nelmes is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of East London. Her research interests include gender and film, and screenwriting.

Introduction to Film Studies Fifth edition Edited by Jill Nelmes Foreword by Bill Nichols

First published 1996 by Routledge

This edition published

by Routledge

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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

1996, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2012 Jill Nelmes, editorial and selection matter; individual chapters, the contributors

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Introduction to film studies/ edited by Jill Nelmes ; [foreword, Bill Nicholls]. -- 5th ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Motion pictures. I. Nelmes, Jill, 1954-PN1994.I537

791.43--dc22

2011013133

ISBN: 978-0-415-58257-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-58259-9 (pbk)

Illustrations

Contributors

Linda Craig is Senior Lecturer in Film and Literature at the University of East London, specialising in Latin America. Her monograph, Marginality and Gender in the works of Juan Carlos Onetti, Manuel Puig and Luisa Valenzuela was published in 2005 by Boydell and Brewer, and she has published numerous articles on Latin American and Spanish literature and film, the most recent of these being Transnationalism in Pedro Almodvars All About My Mother, Transnational Cinemas, volume 1, no. 2, 2010.

Terri Francis is Assistant Professor of Film Studies and African American Studies at Yale University. Her current research interests focus on Josephine Bakers stardom. Her work on Baker, Embodied Fictions, Melancholy Migrations: Josephine Bakers Cinematic Celebrity, has been published in Modern Fiction Studies. Her next project will concern Jamaican film history.

Lalitha Gopalan is an Associate Professor and teaches film studies at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. She is the author of Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema (2002) and Bombay (1995).

Chris Jones has taught literature, theatre and film studies for a number of years. He has participated in gay-related theatre and video work. He wrote about Derek Jarman for his film MA. He has taught film theory and creative writing at the University of Greenwich.

Mark Joyce is Senior Lecturer in Communication and Cultural Studies at Southampton Solent University. He is also course leader of the recently validated BA degree programme in Media Communication. He has co-authored Advanced Level Media (2001) and is currently writing a chapter on Consumer Identities for Key Themes in Interpersonal Communication (2007).

Searle Kochberg is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies and Video Production at the University of Portsmouth. He also works as a film critic and as a consultant to various media/arts organisations.

Lawrence Napper gained his PhD from the University of East Anglia in 2001. He taught at UEA for a number of years, and has also taught at the University of Warwick and at Kings College, London. He has written variously on British cinema, including articles on Quota Quickies in Robert Murphy (ed.), The British Cinema Book (1999) and British Cinema and the Middlebrow in Justine Ashby and Andrew Higson (eds), British Cinema: Past and Present (Routledge, 2000). His book on British Cinema and Middlebrow Culture is due to be published by the University of Exeter Press in 2007. He currently lives and works in London.

Jill Nelmes is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of East London. Her research interests include gender and film, and screenwriting. She is editor of The