In a now-famous interview with Fran�ois Truffaut in 1962, Alfred Hitchcock described his masterpiece Rear Window (1954) as "the purest expression of a cinematic idea." But what, precisely, did Hitchcock mean by pure cinema? Was pure cinema a function of mise en sc�ne, or composition within the frame? Was it a function of montage, "of pieces of film assembled"? This notion of pure cinema has intrigued and perplexed critics, theorists, and filmmakers alike in the decades following this discussion. And even across his 40-year career, Hitchcock's own ideas about pure cinema remained mired in a lack of detail, clarity, and analytical precision. The Art of Pure Cinema is the first book-length study to examine the historical foundations and stylistic mechanics of pure cinema. Author Bruce Isaacs explores the potential of a philosophical and artistic approach most explicitly demonstrated by Hitchcock in his later films, beginning with Hitchcock's contact with the European avant-garde film movement in the mid-1920s. Tracing the evolution of a philosophy of pure cinema across Hitchcock's most experimental works - Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, and Frenzy - Isaacs rereads these works in a new and vital context. In addition to this historical account, the book presents the first examination of pure cinema as an integrated stylistics of mise en sc�ne, montage, and sound design. The films of so-called Hitchcockian imitators like Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Brian De Palma are also examined in light of a provocative claim: that the art of pure cinema is only fully realized after Hitchcock.

In a now-famous interview with François Truffaut in 1962, Alfred Hitchcock described his masterpiece Rear Window (1954) as "the purest expression of a cinematic idea." But what, precisely, did Hitchcock mean by pure cinema? Was pure cinema a function of mise en scène, or composition within the frame? Was it a function of montage, "of pieces of film assembled"? This notion of pure cinema has intrigued and perplexed critics, theorists, and filmmakers alike in the decades following this discussion. And even across his 40-year career, Hitchcock's own ideas about pure cinema remained mired in a lack of detail, clarity, and analytical precision. The Art of Pure Cinema is the first book-length study to examine the historical foundations and stylistic mechanics of pure cinema. Author Bruce Isaacs explores the potential of a philosophical and artistic approach most explicitly demonstrated by Hitchcock in his later films, beginning with Hitchcock's contact with the European avant-garde film movement in the mid-1920s. Tracing the evolution of a philosophy of pure cinema across Hitchcock's most experimental works - Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, and Frenzy - Isaacs rereads these works in a new and vital context. In addition to this historical account, the book presents the first examination of pure cinema as an integrated stylistics of mise en scène, montage, and sound design. The films of so-called Hitchcockian imitators like Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Brian De Palma are also examined in light of a provocative claim: that the art of pure cinema is only fully realized after Hitchcock.

By Amos Vogel. Foreword by Scott MacDonald.

What is the fate of cinema in an age of new technologies, new aesthetic styles, new modes of cultural production and consumption? What becomes of cinema and a century-long history of the moving image when the theatre is outmoded as a social and aesthetic space, as celluloid gives over to digital technology, as the art-house and multiplex are overtaken by a proliferation of home entertainment systems? The Orientation of Future Cinema offers an ambitious and compelling argument for the continued life of cinema as image, narrative and experience. Commencing with Lumière’s Arrival of a Train at a Station, Bruce Isaacs confronts the threat of contemporary digital technologies and processes by returning to cinema’s complex history as a technological and industrial phenomenon. The technology of moving images has profoundly changed; and yet cinema materialises ever more forcefully in digital capture and augmentation, 3-D perception and affect, High Frame Rate cinema, and the evolution of spectacle as the dominant aesthetic mode in contemporary studio production.

The Beauty and the Beast legend has a universal appeal; the tale exists in numerous versions throughout the world. After all of its ups and downs, Disney's Beauty and the Beast was released in 1991 to rave reviews and record-breaking business. The film was widely hailed as a technical and aesthetic breakthrough. It was the first of only three animated features ever to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture. Its success has since spun into a smash Broadway musical adaptation, intricately detailed environments at Walt Disney World, and soon a live-action movie musical directed by Bill Condon. This authoritative book features interviews with artists, producers, directors, writers, actors, and more from the various beloved installments-making it a treasure trove of delights for fans of the tale as old as time.

Cinema was the first, and is arguably still the greatest, of the industrialized art forms that came to dominate the cultural life of the twentieth century. Today, it continues to adapt and grow as new technologies and viewing platforms become available, and remains an integral cultural and aesthetic entertainment experience for people the world over. Cinema developed against the backdrop of the two world wars, and over the years has seen smaller wars, revolutions, and profound social changes. Its history reflects this changing landscape, and, more than any other art form, developments in technology. In this Very Short Introduction, Nowell-Smith looks at the defining moments of the industry, from silent to sound, black and white to colour, and considers its genres from intellectual art house to mass market entertainment. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introduction series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

"It's like having a new Brian De Palma picture." - Martin Scorsese, Academy Award-winning director FROM THE DIRECTOR OF SCARFACE AND DRESSED TO KILL -- A FEMALE REVENGE STORY When the beautiful young videographer offered to join his campaign, Senator Lee Rogers should've known better. But saying no would have taken a stronger man than Rogers, with his ailing wife and his robust libido. Enter Barton Brock, the senator's fixer. He's already gotten rid of one troublesome young woman -- how hard could this new one turn out to be? Pursued from Washington D.C. to the streets of Paris, 18-year-old Fanny Cours knows her reputation and budding career are on the line. But what she doesn't realize is that her life might be as well...

How is one to think the significance of the art of film for philosophy? What would it mean to introduce film as a question into the heart of the philosophical enterprise? This book develops a matrix for thinking the relations between philosophy and film and, by extension, between philosophy and the arts.

Color is one of cinema’s most alluring formal systems, building on a range of artistic traditions that orchestrate visual cues to tell stories, stage ideas, and elicit feelings. But what if color is not—or not only—a formal system, but instead a linguistic effect, emerging from the slipstream of our talk and embodiment in a world? This book develops a compelling framework from which to understand the mobility of color in art and mind, where color impressions are seen through, and even governed by, patterns of ordinary language use, schemata, memories, and narrative. Edward Branigan draws on the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and other philosophers who struggle valiantly with problems of color aesthetics, contemporary theories of film and narrative, and art-historical models of analysis. Examples of a variety of media, from American pop art to contemporary European cinema, illustrate a theory based on a spectator’s present-time tracking of temporal patterns that are firmly entwined with language use and social intelligence.

Fiftieth anniversary reissue of the founding media studies book that helped establish media art as a cultural category. First published in 1970, Gene Youngblood’s influential Expanded Cinema was the first serious treatment of video, computers, and holography as cinematic technologies. Long considered the bible for media artists, Youngblood’s insider account of 1960s counterculture and the birth of cybernetics remains a mainstay reference in today’s hypermediated digital world. This fiftieth anniversary edition includes a new Introduction by the author that offers conceptual tools for understanding the sociocultural and sociopolitical realities of our present world. A unique eyewitness account of burgeoning experimental film and the birth of video art in the late 1960s, this far- ranging study traces the evolution of cinematic language to the end of fiction, drama, and realism. Vast in scope, its prescient formulations include “the paleocybernetic age,” “intermedia,” the “artist as design scientist,” the “artist as ecologist,” “synaesthetics and kinesthetics,” and “the technosphere: man/machine symbiosis.” Outstanding works are analyzed in detail. Methods of production are meticulously described, including interviews with artists and technologists of the period, such as Nam June Paik, Jordan Belson, Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, Carolee Schneemann, Stan VanDerBeek, Les Levine, and Frank Gillette. An inspiring Introduction by the celebrated polymath and designer R. Buckminster Fuller—a perfectly cut gem of countercultural thinking in itself—places Youngblood’s radical observations in comprehensive perspective. Providing an unparalleled historical documentation, Expanded Cinema clarifies a chapter of countercultural history that is still not fully represented in the arthistorical record half a century later. The book will also inspire the current generation of artists working in ever-newer expansions of the cinematic environment and will prove invaluable to all who are concerned with the technologies that are reshaping the nature of human communication.