Films with dream sequences, or a dreamlike quality, allow directors to create their own rules of logic and nature to meet a variety of artistic needs. For instance, an opening dream immediately establishes what a character is feeling; a later dream--or series of them--provides viewers with a glimpse of the climax, and a concluding dream ties up loose ends. (In real life, of course, dreams do not occur at such convenient times or serve such useful purposes.) This book explores why science is lost or distorted in the process of representing dreams on film and why audiences prefer this figurative truth of art over the literal truth of science. Part One discusses changes in form and considers the history of dream theory. Additionally, the physiology of sleeping and dreaming, dream structure, sleep deprivation, dreams under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and waking up, as depicted on film, are examined. Part Two investigates changes in content, and delves into the psychology of sleeping and dreaming, dream interpretation, altered states of consciousness, visions and prophecies, dreams as wish fulfillment, sex and death, nightmares, and reality versus illusion. The author uses theories by Freud, Jung, and current experts in her analyses of dream sequences and their use in film.

Films and Dreams considers the essential link between films and the world of dreams. To discuss dream theory in the context of film studies means moving from the original, clinical context within which dream theory was originally developed to an environment established by primarily aesthetic concerns. Botz-Bornstein deals with dreams as "self-sufficient" phenomena that are interesting not because of their contents but because of the "dreamtense" through which they deploy their being. A diverse selection of films are examined in this light: Tarkovsky's anti-realism exploring the domain of the improbable between symbolization, representation and alienation; Sokurov's subversive attacks on the modern image ideology; Arthur Schnitzler's shifting of the familiar to the uncanny and Kubrick's avoidance of this structural model in Eyes Wide Shut; and Wong Kar-Wai's dreamlike panorama of parodied capitalism.

The novel that inspired Field of Dreams: “A lyrical, seductive, and altogether winning concoction.” —The New York Times Book Review One of Sports Illustrated’s 100 Greatest Sports Books “If you build it, he will come.” When Ray Kinsella hears these mysterious words spoken in the voice of an Iowa baseball announcer, he is inspired to carve a baseball diamond in his cornfield. It is a tribute to his hero, the legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson, whose reputation was forever tarnished by the scandalous 1919 World Series. What follows is a timeless story that is “not so much about baseball as it is about dreams, magic, life, and what is quintessentially American” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). “A triumph of hope.” —The Boston Globe “A moonlit novel about baseball, dreams, family, the land, and literature.” —Sports Illustrated

In the earliest years of cinema, travelogues were a staple of variety film programs in commercial motion picture theaters. These short films, also known as "scenics," depicted tourist destinations and exotic landscapes otherwise inaccessible to most viewers. Scenics were so popular that they were briefly touted as the future of film. But despite their pervasiveness during the early twentieth century, travelogues have been overlooked by film historians and critics. In Education in the School of Dreams, Jennifer Lynn Peterson recovers this lost archive. Through innovative readings of travelogues and other nonfiction films exhibited in the United States between 1907 and 1915, she offers fresh insights into the aesthetic and commercial history of early cinema and provides a new perspective on the intersection of American culture, imperialism, and modernity in the nickelodeon era. Peterson describes the travelogue's characteristic form and style and demonstrates how imperialist ideologies were realized and reshaped through the moving image. She argues that although educational films were intended to legitimate filmgoing for middle-class audiences, travelogues were not simply vehicles for elite ideology. As a form of instructive entertainment, these technological moving landscapes were both formulaic and also wondrous and dreamlike. Considering issues of spectatorship and affect, Peterson argues that scenics produced and disrupted viewers' complacency about their own place in the world.

Federico Fellini is one of the most beloved and revered filmmakers of the twentieth century, having entertained audiences worldwide with his ability to breathe life into imagery normally confined to human memory and emotion. His insights into the world of dreams have contributed to his many famous cinematic creations, including La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, and La Strada. A unique combination of memory, fantasy, and desire, this illustrated volume is a personal diary of Fellini's private visions and nighttime fantasies. Fellini, winner of four Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film, kept notebooks filled with unique sketches and notes from his dreams from the 1960s onward. This collection delves into his cinematic genius as it is captured in widely detailed caricatures and personal writings. This dream diary exhibits Fellini's deeply personal taste for the bizarre and the irrational. His sketches focus on the profound struggle of the soul and are tinged with humor, empathy, and insight. Fellini's Book of Dreams is an intriguing source of never-before-published writings and drawings, which reveal the master filmmaker's personal vision and his infinite imagination.

Musical spectacles are excessive and abstract, reconfiguring time and space and creating intense bodily responses. Amy Herzog's engaging work examines those instances where music and movement erupt from within more linear narrative frameworks. The representational strategies found in these films are often formulaic, repeating familiar story lines and stereotypical depictions of race, gender, and class. Yet she finds the musical moment contains a powerful disruptive potential. Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same investigates the tension and the fusion of difference and repetition in films to ask, How does the musical moment work? Herzog looks at an eclectic mix of works, including the Soundie and Scopitone jukebox films, the musicals of French director Jacques Demy, the synchronized swimming spectacles of Esther Williams, and an apocalyptic musical by Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang. Several refrains circulate among these texts: their reliance on clichés, their rewriting of cultural narratives, and their hallucinatory treatment of memory and history. Drawing on the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze, she explores all of these dissonances as productive forces, and in doing so demonstrates the transformative power of the unexpected.

Hollywood's reaction to it's media rivals throughout the history of cinema in America.

An exhilarating, wondrous middle grade debut about a brother and sister on a quest that “swoops from thrilling to terrifying to heartwarming and back again” (BookPage) to defeat a tyrannical ruler and protect a magical book. “[W]ill appeal to readers of Kelly Barnhill and Lemony Snicket” (Publishers Weekly). Rachel and Robert live a gray, dreary life under the rule of cruel and calculating Charles Malstain. That is, until one night, when their librarian father enlists their help to steal a forbidden book. Before their father is captured, Rachel and Robert are given one mission: find the missing final page. But to uncover the secrets of The Book of Stolen Dreams, the siblings must face darkness and combat many evils to be rewarded with the astonishing, magical truth about the book. Nevertheless, they resolve to do everything in their power to stop it from falling into Charles Malstain’s hands. For if it does, he could rule their world forever.

"What we see, and what we seem, are but a dream, a dream within a dream." Michael Bliss views Miranda's voice-over at the beginning of Picnic at Hanging Rock as so pivotal in explaining the films of Peter Weir that he borrows her words to create the title of his own study of the Australian filmmaker's work. Bliss views Weir as an artist whose values are rooted in the realm of the dream, of the unconscious. Surrealistic in technique, Weir avoids the pedestrian assurances of a material realm in favor of an irresolution that, while potentially frustrating, is nonetheless for him a more truthful representation of what he considers reality. For Weir, as for Plato, Bliss demonstrates, "empirical reality is nothing more than a shadow of what is real." Bliss also considers Weir's heritage. Australian cinema, Bliss explains, is characterized by melodramatic narratives born of a desire to see good and evil portrayed in striking opposition. Weir, for example, dramatizes the contradictory forces of light versus darkness, reason versus mystery, and rationality versus magic in such films as Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave. This melodramatic emphasis is evident as well in the polarized characterizations in such films as Witness, Dead Poets Society, and The Truman Show. Bliss also discusses Weir's use of another staple of Australian cinema-- "mateship," the celebration of the bond between male companions. But by making self-knowledge dependent on action involving one's friends, Weir gives mateship a new meaning. Moreover, like other Australian filmmakers, Weir emphasizes the starkness of the Australian landscape, which functions either as a hazard or a deadly challenge, at least until American mythology caused him to see nature in a more positive light. Also prominent in Weir's films is an Australian spirit of rebellion coupled with the Aussie ambivalence toward all aspects of British culture. To help explain Weir's films, Bliss looks to Freud and Jung, whom Weir has studied, and also to two other prominent purveyors of myth and archetype, Northrop Frye and Joseph Campbell. Virtually all Weir characters struggle toward a new mode of awareness, a psychological awareness based on archetypal truths. Many of his films involve archetypal journeys heading through conflict to spiritual unity. Weir's quest is to find out what we really know and how we know what we know.

Pennies From Across the Veil is a love story... about death. Karl Himmel tells the story to an unknown presence, of how he met, fell in love, and married the woman of his dreams, Jenny Engels. But at the time of the telling, Karl and Jenny find themselves on different sides of the veil—the separation we call death. But not even death can stop true love. Powerful signs come to those from loved ones who have passed. They can be found any and everywhere, we just need to look for them. The most significant for Karl and Jenny was the finding of numerous wheat-back pennies. However, could there have been many others, and did these signs have a deeper meaning?