A COMPANION TO EARLY CINEMA “This collection of essays by early cinema scholars from Europe and North America offers manifold perspectives on early cinema fiction which perfectly reflect the state of international research.” – Martin Loiperdinger, Universitaet Trier “A fabulous selection of first-rate articles!” – Rick Altman, University of Iowa “One of the most challenging books in recent film studies: in it, early cinema is both a historical object and a contemporary presence. As in a great novel, we can retrace the adventures of the past – the films, styles, discourses, and receptions that made cinema the breakthrough reality it was in its first decades. But we can also come to appreciate how much of this reality is still present in our digital world.” – Francesco Casetti, Yale University A Companion to Early Cinema is an authoritative reference on the field of early cinema. Its 30 peer-reviewed chapters offer cutting-edge research and original perspectives on the major concerns in early cinema studies, and take an ambitious look at ideas and themes that will lead discussions about early cinema into the future. Including work by both established and up-and-coming scholars in early cinema, film theory, and film history, this will be the definitive volume on early cinema history for years to come and a must-have reference for all those working in the field.

One-volume reference work on the first twenty-five years of the cinema's international emergence from the early 1890s to the mid-1910s.

A new collection in the Wiley Blackwell Companions to National Cinemas series, featuring the cinemas of India In A Companion to Indian Cinema, film scholars Neepa Majumdar and Ranjani Mazumdar along with 25 established and emerging scholars, deliver new research on contemporary and historical questions on Indian cinema. The collection considers Indian cinema's widespread presence both within and outside the country, and pays particular attention to regional cinemas such as Bhojpuri, Bengali, Malayalam, Manipuri, and Marathi. The volume also reflects on the changing dimensions of technology, aesthetics, and the archival impulse of film. The editors have included scholarship that discusses a range of films and film experiences that include commercial cinema, art cinema, and non-fiction film. Even as scholarship on earlier decades of Indian cinema is challenged by the absence of documentation and films, the innovative archival and field work in this Companion extends from cinema in early twentieth century India to a historicized engagement with new technologies and contemporary cinematic practices. There is a focus on production cultures and circulation, material cultures, media aesthetics, censorship, stardom, non-fiction practices, new technologies, and the transnational networks relevant to Indian cinema. Suitable for undergraduate and graduate students of film and media studies, South Asian studies, and history, A Companion to Indian Cinema is also an important new resource for scholars with an interest in the context and theoretical framework for the study of India's moving image cultures.

This volume of specially commissioned work by experts in the field of film studies provides a comprehensive overview of the field. Its international and interdisciplinary approach will have a broad appeal to those interested in this multifaceted subject. Provides a major collection of specially commissioned work by experts in the field of film studies. Represents material under a variety of headings, including class, race, gender, queer theory, nation, stars, ethnography, authorship, and spectatorship. Offers an international approach to the subject, including coverage of topics such as genre, image, sound, editing, culture industries, early cinema, classical Hollywood, and TV relations and technology. Includes concise chapter-by-chapter accounts of the background and current approaches to each topic, followed by a prognostication on the future. Considers cinema studies in relation to other forms of knowledge, such as critical studies, anthropology, and literature.

This volume offers a new and expanded history of the documentary form across a range of times and contexts, featuring original essays by leading historians in the field In a contemporary media culture suffused with competing truth claims, documentary media have become one of the most significant means through which we think in depth about the past. The most rigorous collection of essays on nonfiction film and media history and historiography currently available, A Companion to Documentary Film History offers an in-depth, global examination of central historical issues and approaches in documentary, and of documentary's engagement with historical and contemporary topics, debates, and themes. The Companion's twenty original essays by prominent nonfiction film and media historians challenge prevalent conceptions of what documentary is and was, and explore its growth, development, and function over time. The authors provide fresh insights on the mode's reception, geographies, authorship, multimedia contexts, and movements, and address documentary's many aesthetic, industrial, historiographical, and social dimensions. This authoritative volume: Offers both historical specificity and conceptual flexibility in approaching nonfiction and documentary media Explores documentary's multiple, complex geographic and geopolitical frameworks Covers a diversity of national and historical contexts, including Revolution-era Soviet Union, post-World War Two Canada and Europe, and contemporary China Establishes new connections and interpretive contexts for key individual films and film movements, using new primary sources Interrogates established assumptions about documentary authorship, audiences, and documentary's historical connection to other media practices. A Companion to Documentary Film History is an ideal text for undergraduate and graduate courses covering documentary or nonfiction film and media, an excellent supplement for courses on national or regional media histories, and an important new resource for all film and media studies scholars, particularly those in nonfiction media.

Broad in scope, this interdisciplinary collection of original scholarship on historical film features essays that explore the many facets of this expanding field and provide a platform for promising avenues of research. Offers a unique collection of cutting edge research that questions the intention behind and influence of historical film Essays range in scope from inclusive broad-ranging subjects such as political contexts, to focused assessments of individual films and auteurs Prefaced with an introductory survey of the field by its two distinguished editors Features interdisciplinary contributions from scholars in the fields of History, Film Studies, Anthropology, and Cultural and Literary Studies

A Companion to Fritz Lang “Fritz Lang’s movie-making spans a major part of the history of cinema, across genres, styles, and national contexts. With smartness and sharpness, the essays in this essential volume come from many angles to capture the richness of Lang’s cinema and bring great insight to its study.” Dana Polan, Cinema Studies, NYU Fritz Lang’s influence on cinema cannot be overstated, with a career that stretched from the silent era in Germany to the decline of the Hollywood studio system in the late 1950s, from the Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany, from Depression America to the McCarthy era. One of the best known émigrés from Germany’s school of Expressionism, Lang is also credited with influencing the emergence of film noir. A Companion to Fritz Lang offers the first full-scale collection of scholarship available in English on one of the most important filmmakers of all time. Addressing much of Lang’s voluminous body of work, from Metropolis and M, to lesser-known titles such as Western Union and Clash by Night, this volume offers a superb overview of Lang’s cinema with revealing insights into his enduring influence on directors such as Godard, Scorsese, Chabrol, and Tarantino. The two dozen essays presented here are an unrivaled and up-to-the-minute assessment of the prolific and resilient life and vision of one of cinema’s greatest auteurs.