Nicholas Rombes

This debut will ensure Nicholas Rombes the status of a distinctive and fresh American visionary; David Lynch admirers take note.

The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing

"Nicholas Rombes examines punk history, with the recording of Ramones at its core, in this inspiring and thoroughly researched justification of his obsession with the album". -Back cover.

The Ramones' Ramones

Ramones. Hey! Ho! Let's go!

Does the digital era spell the death of cinema as we know it? Or is it merely heralding its rebirth? Are we witnessing the emergence of something entirely new? Cinema in the Digital Age examines the fate of cinema in this new era, paying special attention to the technologies that are reshaping film and their cultural impact. Examining Festen (1998), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Timecode (2000), Russian Ark (2002), The Ring (2002), among others, this volume explores how these films are haunted by their analogue past and suggests that their signature element are their deliberate imperfections, whether those take the form of blurry or pixilated images, shakey camera work, or other elements reminding viewers of the human hand guiding the camera. Weaving together a rich variety of sources, Cinema in the Digital Age provides a deeply humanistic look at the meaning of cinematic images in the era of digital perfection.

Cinema in the Digital Age

Examines the fate of cinema in the digital era, paying special attention to both the technologies and their cultural meaning.

In an era of rapid transformation from analog to digital, how can we write about cinema in ways that are as fresh, surprising, and challenging as the best films are? In 10/40/70 Nicholas Rombes proposes one bold possibility: pause a film at the 10, 40, and 70-minute mark and write about the frames at hand, no matter what they are. This method of constraint—by eliminating choice and foreclosing on authorial intention—allows the film itself to dictate the terms of its analysis freed from the tyranny of predetermined interpretation. Inspired by Roland Barthes’s notion of the “third meaning” and its focus on the film frame as an image that is neither a photograph nor a moving image, Rombes assumes the role of image detective, searching the frames for clues not only about the films themselves—drawn from a wide range of genres and time periods—but the very conditions of their existence in the digital age.

Constraint as Liberation in the Era of Digital Film Theory

10/40/70

Neither a dry-as-dust reference volume recycling the same dull facts nor a gushy, gossipy puff piece, A Cultural Dictionary of Punk: 1974-1982 is a bold book that examines punk as a movement that is best understood by placing it in its cultural field. It contains myriad critical-listening descriptions of the sounds of the time, but also places those sounds in the context of history. Drawing on hundreds of fanzines, magazines, and newspapers, the book is - in the spirit of punk - an obsessive, strident, and sometimes deeply personal portrait of the many ways in which punk was an artistic, cultural, and political expression of defiance. A Cultural Dictionary of Punk is organized around scores of distinct entries, on everything from Lester Bangs to The Slits, from Jimmy Carter to Minimalism, from 'Dot Dash' to Bad Brains. This book takes a fresh look at how the malaise of the 1970s offered fertile ground for punk - as well as the new wave, post-punk, and hardcore - to emerge as a rejection of the easy platitudes of the dying counter-culture. The organization is accessible and entertaining: short bursts of meaning, in tune with the beat of punk itself. Meant to be read straight through or opened up and experienced at random, A Cultural Dictionary of Punk covers not only many of the well-known, now-legendary punk bands, but the obscure, forgotten ones as well. Along the way, punk's secret codes are unraveled and a critical time in history is framed and exclaimed.

1974-1982

A Cultural Dictionary of Punk

Have digital technologies transformed cinema into a new art, or do they simply replicate and mimic analogue, film-based cinema? Newly revised and expanded to take the latest developments into account, Cinema in the Digital Age examines the fate of cinema in the wake of the digital revolution. Nicholas Rombes considers Festen (1998), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Timecode (2000), Russian Ark (2002), and The Ring (2002), among others. Haunted by their analogue pasts, these films are interested not in digital purity but rather in imperfection and mistakes—blurry or pixilated images, shaky camera work, and other elements that remind viewers of the human behind the camera. With a new introduction and new material, this updated edition takes a fresh look at the historical and contemporary state of digital cinema. It pays special attention to the ways in which nostalgia for the look and feel of analogue disrupts the aesthetics of the digital image, as well as how recent films such as The Social Network (2010) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)—both shot digitally—have disguised and erased their digital foundations. The book also explores new possibilities for writing about and theorizing film, such as randomization.

New Punk Cinemais the first book to examine a new breed of film that is indebted to the punk spirit of experimentation, do-it-yourself ethos, and an uneasy, often defiant relationship with the mainstream. An array of established and emerging scholars trace and map the contours of new punk cinema, from its roots in neorealism and the French New Wave, to its flowering in the work of Lars von Trier and the Dogma 95 movement. Subsequent chapters explore the potentially democratic and even anarchic forces of digital filmmaking, the influences of hypertext and other new media, the increased role of the viewer in arranging and manipulating the chronology of a film, and the role of new punk cinema in plotting a course beyond the postmodern. The book examines a range of films, including The Blair Witch Project, Time Code, Run Lola Run, Memento, The Celebration, Gummo, and Requiem for a Dream. New Punk Cinemais ideal for classroom use at the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as for film scholars interested in fresh approaches to the emergence of this vital new turn in cinema. Key Features Offers a comprehensive examination of the term 'new punk' cinema. Provides several new approaches for the study of digital cinema. Includes close analysis of several key new punk films and directors.

New Punk Cinema

Neither a dry-as-dust reference volume recycling the same dull facts nor a gushy, gossipy puff piece, A Cultural Dictionary of Punk: 1974-1982 is a bold book that examines punk as a movement that is best understood by placing it in its cultural field. It contains myriad critical-listening descriptions of the sounds of the time, but also places those sounds in the context of history. Drawing on hundreds of fanzines, magazines, and newspapers, the book is-in the spirit of punk-an obsessive, exhaustively researched, and sometimes deeply personal portrait of the many ways in which punk was an artistic, cultural, and political expression of defiance. A Cultural Dictionary of Punk is organized around scores of distinct entries, on everything from Lester Bangs to The Slits, from Jimmy Carter to Minimalism, from 'Dot Dash' to Bad Brains. Both highly informative and thrillingly idiosyncratic, the book takes a fresh look at how the malaise of the 1970s offered fertile ground for punk-as well as the new wave, post-punk, and hardcore-to emerge as a rejection of the easy platitudes of the dying counter-culture. The organization is accessible and entertaining: short bursts of meaning, in tune with the beat of punk itself. Rombes upends notions that the story of punk can be told in a chronological, linear fashion. Meant to be read straight through or opened up and experienced at random, A Cultural Dictionary of Punk covers not only many of the well-known, now-legendary punk bands, but the obscure, forgotten ones as well. Along the way, punk's secret codes are unraveled and a critical time in history is framed and exclaimed. Visit the Cultural Dictionaryof Punk blog here.

Nicholas Rombes

About

Books

Join the club