Yvonne Tasker

An authoritative investigation of Hollywood's portrayal of women. WORKING GIRLS examines Hollywood's ambivalent articulation of women as both active and defined by sexual performance, questioning whether new Hollywood film makers even have grasped, much less responded to, feminism and contemporary sexual identities. Photos.

Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema

Working Girls

Diane Negra

DIVFeminist essays examining postfeminism in American and British popular culture./div

Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture

Interrogating Postfeminism

Study of one of the defining films of recent American cinema, exploring the way it weaves together gothic, horror and thriller conventions.

The Silence of the Lambs

While films such as Rambo, Thelma and Louise and Basic Instinct have operated as major points of cultural reference in recent years, popular action cinema remains neglected within contemporary film criticism. Spectacular Bodies unravels the complexities and pleasures of a genre often dismissed as `obvious' in both its pleasure and its politics, arguing that these controversial films should be analysed and understood within a cinematic as well as a political context. Yvonne Tasker argues that today's action cinema not only responds to the shifts in gendered, sexual and racial identities which took place during the 1980s, but reflects the influences of other media such as the new video culture. Her detailed discussion of the homoeroticism surrounding the muscleman hero, the symbolic centrality of blackness within the crime narrative, and the changing status of women within the genre, addresses the constitution of these identities through the shifting categories of gender, class, race, sex, sexuality and nation. Spectacular Bodies also examines the ambivalence of supposedly secure categories of popular cinema, questioning the existing terms of film criticism in this area and addressing the complex pleasures of this neglected form.

Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema

Spectacular Bodies

Suzanne Leonard

Fifty Hollywood Directors introduces the most important, iconic and influential filmmakers who worked in Hollywood between the end of the silent period and the birth of the blockbuster. By exploring the historical, cultural and technological contexts in which each director was working, this book traces the formative period in commercial cinema when directors went from pioneers to industry heavyweights. Each entry discusses a director’s practices and body of work and features a brief biography and suggestions for further reading. Entries include: Frank Capra Cecil B DeMille John Ford Alfred Hitchcock Fritz Lang Orson Welles DW Griffith King Vidor This is an indispensible guide for anyone interested in film history, Hollywood and the development of the role of the director.

Fifty Hollywood Directors

From Luc Besson to Quentin Tarantino, Fifty Contemporary Film-makers offers an up-to-date guide to the individuals who are shaping modern cinema.

Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers

"In this study Yvonne Tasker explores the way the film weaves together gothic, horror and thriller conventions to generate both a distinctive variation on the cinematic portrayal of insanity and crime, and a fascinating intervention in the sexual politics of genre."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Fifty Contemporary Film Directors examines the work of some of today’s most popular and influential cinematic figures. It provides an accessible overview of each director’s contribution to cinema, incorporating a discussion of their career, major works and impact. Revised throughout and with twelve new entries, this second edition is an up-to-date introduction to some of the most prominent film makers of the present day. The directors, from differing backgrounds and working across a range of genres, include: Martin Scorsese Steven Spielberg Sofia Coppola Julie Dash Shane Meadow Michael Moore Peter Jackson Guillermo Del Toro Tim Burton Jackie Chan Ang Lee Pedro Almodóvar. With further reading and a filmography accompanying each entry, this comprehensive guide is indispensable to all those studying contemporary film and will appeal to anyone interested in the key individuals behind modern cinema’s greatest achievements.

Fifty Contemporary Film Directors

This book provides an accessible overview of each director’s contribution to cinema, incorporating a discussion of their career, major works and impact.

A comprehensive analysis of the changing representations of military women in American and British movies and TV programs from the Second World War to the present.

Military Women in Cinema and Television Since World War II

Soldiers' Stories

This exciting collection addresses action and adventure from the silent to the contemporary period exploring diverse questions of aesthetics, industry and ideology. Action has established itself as one of the leading commercial genres of the New Hollywood cinema, generating extensive debate in the process. Contributors consider how action might best be defined, how it has developed historically, and how it works formally. The critical reception and standing of action and adventure cinema is considered in relation to questions of national culture, violence and the 'art' of cinema. Themes explored include genre and definitions; early action, sensation and melodrama; authorship and action; national and transnational action-adventure traditions; action aesthetics; spectacle and narrative; stars and bodies; class; gender; race and ethnicity. Attempting to evaluate the significance of this type of filmmaking for both popular cinema and film studies, the book underlines the central place of action and adventure within film history.

The Action and Adventure Cinema

Released in 1990, The Silence of the Lambs is one of the defining films of late twentieth century American cinema. Adapted from the Thomas Harris novel and directed by the late Jonathan Demme, its central characters are now iconic. Jodie Foster is Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee investigating 'Buffalo Bill', a serial killer who flays his victims. Anthony Hopkins plays Hannibal Lecter, a serial killer and former psychiatrist who assists Starling in exchange for personal details. With its pairing of a perverse, invasive anti-hero and a questing, proto-action heroine, The Silence of the Lambs unfolds as a layered narrative of pursuit. In this study, Yvonne Tasker explores the film's weaving together of gothic, horror and thriller elements in its portrayal of insanity and crime, drawing out the centrality of ideas about gender to the storytelling. She identifies the film as a key genre reference point for tracking late twentieth century interests in police procedural, profiling and serial murder, analysing its key themes of reason and madness, identity and belonging, aspiration and transformation. A new afterword explores the legacies of The Silence of the Lambs and its figuring of crime and investigation in terms of gender disruption and spectacular violence.

Working Girls investigates the thematic concerns of contemporary Hollywood cinema, and its ambivalent articulation of women as both active, and defined by sexual performance, asking whether new Hollywood cinema has responded to feminism and contemporary sexual identities. Whether analysing the rise of films centred around female friendships, or the entrance of pop stars such as Whitney Houston and Madonna into film, Working Girls is an authoritative investigation of the presence of women both as film makers and actors in contemporary mainstream cinema.

Thomas Harris

The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film presents a comprehensive overview and analysis of the history, myriad themes, and critical approaches to the action and adventure genre in American cinema. Draws on a wide range of examples, spanning the silent spectacles of early cinema to the iconic superheroes of 21st-century action films Features case studies revealing the genre?s diverse roots ? from westerns and war films, to crime and espionage movies Explores a rich variety of aesthetic and thematic concerns that have come to define the genre, touching on themes such as the outsider hero, violence and redemption, and adventure as escape from the mundane Integrates discussion of gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality alongside genre history Provides a timely and richly revealing portrait of a powerful cinematic genre that has increasingly come to dominate the American cinematic landscape

The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film

Working Girlsoffers a series of case-studies designed to provide a feminist investigation of the thematic concerns and discursive formations of the contemporary Hollywood cinema.

Yvonne Tasker

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