Reference Books

Before she achieved immortality on the long-running situation comedy Bewitched, Agnes Moorehead had established a distinguished career as a character actress. After her screen debut in Citizen Kane (1941), Moorehead became one of the most familiar female...

Joel and Ethan Coen have written and directed some of the most celebrated American films of the last thirty years. The output of their work has embraced a wide range of genres, including the neo-noirs Blood Simple and The Man Who Wasn't There, the...

Since the dawn of film in the 1890s, religious themes and biblical subjects have been a staple of cinema. One of the earliest focuses of screen presentations was the Bible, especially the New Testament and the Gospels. In Screen Jesus: Portrayals of...

Oliver Stone has written and directed many memorable films while also developing a reputation for tackling controversial subjects, such as the Turkish prison system (Midnight Express), the Vietnam war (Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July), insider...

Whether chronicling an athlete's rise, fall, and redemption or following a team's improbable triumph on the field, sports have been a favorite theme of filmmakers almost since movies were first produced. And whether focusing on soccer (Bend It Like...

Spanish cinema is emerging as one of the most exciting, fascinating, and special cinemas in the world. Not only are others viewing Spanish films, but they are adopting Spanish producers and Spanish actors as their own. While Spanish cinema has been...

Film lovers all over the world are familiar with the masterpieces of Eisenstein and Tarkovsky. These directors' unique achievements were embedded in a powerful process that began under Russia's last tsar and underwent several periods of blossoming: the...

In 1902, scientist and inventor Kazimierz Proszynski made the first Polish narrative film, The Return of a Merry Fellow (Powrot Birbanta). Since then, the Polish film industry has produced a diverse body of work, ranging from patriotic melodramas and...

German film is diverse and multi-faceted; its history includes five distinct German governments (Wilhelmine Germany, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the German Democratic Republic), two national industries...

When the earliest filmgoers watched The Great Train Robbery in 1903, many of them shrieked in terror at the very last clip when one of the outlaws turns directly toward the camera and fires a gun, seemingly, directly at the audience. The puff of smoke...

On 4 July, 1910, in 100-degree heat at an outdoor boxing ring near Reno, Nevada, film cameras recorded-and thousands of fans witnessed-former heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries' reluctant return from retirement to fight Jack Johnson, a black man. After 14...

Twelve novels and nine short stories define one of the most extraordinary fictional characters of all time, creating the basis for the most successful movie series in cinematographic history, watched by more than half the world's population. The single...

When it began, modern Spanish cinema was under strict censorship, forced to conform to the ideological demands of the Nationalist regime. In 1950, the New Spanish Cinema was born as a protest over General Francisco Franco's policies: a new series of...

Covering the historical period from 1908 to 1925, this study showcases pamphlets, magazine articles (from both religious and film periodicals), sermons, and other discourse that chronicle an early vision of church/photoplay cooperation and its subsequent...

Word-of-Mouth in Contemporary Hollywood provides a unique insight into the potential for online communication to enable audiences to exert a greater impact on film industrial practices than ever before. In an overarching analysis of contemporary...

Drawing the Line: Technical Hand Drafting for Film and Television is the essential resource for students and aspiring professionals studying and working in film and television design. The book covers all aspects of scenic drafting by hand - a technique...

Acting for the Screen is a collection of essays written by and interviews with working actors, producers, directors, casting directors, and acting professors, exploring the business side of screen acting.In this book, over thirty show business...

Australian Genre Film interrogates key genres at the core of Australia's so-called new golden age of genre cinema, establishing the foundation on which more sustained research on film genre in Australian cinema can develop. The book examines what...

This book studies the hitherto overlooked genre of horror cinema in India. It uncovers some unique and diverse themes that these films deal with, including the fear of the unknown, the supernatural, occult practices, communication with spirits of the...

Backed by the resources of Independent Feature Project/West, co-authors Nicole Shay LaLoggia and Eden H. Wurmfeld have written the definitive low-budget production manual. Using examples from the Swingers and Kissing Jessica Stein, this comprehensive...

Apologies but we at SciFier don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780879103279Author James UrsiniFormat PaperbackPage Count 424Imprint Limelight EditionsPublisher Limelight EditionsWeight(grams) 903gDimensions(mm) 228mm *...

Alfred Hitchcock's career spanned more than five decades, during which he directed more than 50 films, many of them indisputable classics: Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho, among others. In A Year of...

Director Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy-Blue (1993), White (1993), and Red (1994)-is one of the great achievements of European film. A meditation on liberty, equality, and fraternity, these three films marked the culmination of the...

Whether it was Jane Campion's The Piano, Mel Gibson in Mad Max, Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee, or The Lord of the Rings saga, we have all experienced the cinema of Australia and New Zealand. This book is an introduction and guide to the film of...

In 1989 alone, for example, there were some forty-five major motion pictures which were sequels or part of a series. The film series phenomenon crosses all genres and has been around since the silent film era. This reference guide, in alphabetical order,...

Women's Narrative and Film in 20th Century Spain examines the development of the feminine cultural tradition in spain and how this tradition reshaped and defined a Spanish national identity. Each chapter focuses on representation of autobiography,...

The first book in the English language to investigate the national cinema of Spain in its entiretyIncludes full discussion of regional Basque and Catalan cinemasFeatures discussion on key international filmmakers such as Almodovar and Bunuel. Will be...

Flashbacks in Film examines film flashback as a rich multimodal narrative device, analyzing the cognitive underpinnings of film flashbacks and the mechanisms that lead viewers to successfully comprehend them.Combining a cognitive film theory approach...

An invaluable collection of essays and interviews exploring the business of interactive storytelling, this highly accessible guide offers invaluable insight into an ever-evolving field that is utilizing new spatial and interactive narrative forms to tell...

British Horror Cinema investigates a wealth of horror filmmaking in Britain, from early chillers like The Ghoul and Dark Eyes of London to acknowledged classics such as Peeping Tom and The Wicker Man.Contributors explore the contexts in which British...

Articles examine the musical in relation to its generic form and conventions, the relationship between narrative and spectacle, gender and feminist analysis, camp production and reception, stardom, and the representation of race and ethnicity.Includes...

Screen Media offers screen enthusiasts the analytical and theoretical vocabulary required to articulate responses to film and television. The authors emphasise the importance of 'thinking on both sides of the screen'. They show how to develop the skills...

The Audio Dictionary is a comprehensive resource, including historical, obsolete, and obscure as well as contemporary terms relating to diverse aspects of audio such as film and TV sound, recording, Hi-Fi, and acoustics. The Third Edition includes four...

From intertextuality to postmodern cultural studies, narratology to affect theory, poststructuralism to metamodernism, and postcolonialism to ecocriticism, humanities adaptation studies has engaged with a host of contemporary theories. Yet theorizing...

Essays here explore the relationship between politics and explicitly political feature films from the beginning of the movie industry to World War I, and for each decade through to the 1980's. The included filmography is particularly useful. Originally...

Nicholas Ray was cinema. The legendary director of such classic films as Rebel Without a Cause was an innovative force who dramatically changed the Hollywood landscape. He was also Nicca Ray's dad, Nick. After he disappeared from her life in 1964,...

Apologies but we at SciFier don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781557836496Author John Kenneth MuirFormat PaperbackPage Count 322Imprint Applause Theatre Book PublishersPublisher Hal Leonard CorporationSeries Applause...

Apologies but we at SciFier don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781557836090Author John Kenneth MuirFormat PaperbackPage Count 280Imprint Applause Theatre Book PublishersPublisher Hal Leonard CorporationSeries Applause...

The winner of four Academy Awards for directing, John Ford is considered by many to be America's greatest native-born director. Ford helmed some of the most memorable films in American cinema, including The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, and...

This is the first sustained critical collection on Albert Brooks, one of the key but under-examined figures in American stand-up, television comedy and Hollywood film comedy. Analysing every film written and directed by Albert Brooks, including Real Life...