Film Moments Criticism, History, Theory

Film Momentsbrings together specially commissioned essays by leading international scholars to provide a close analysis of key films of world cinema, includingThe Wizard of Oz,United 93,8 1/2,Wild StrawberriesandMagnolia. The essays represent a range of critical approaches to and concepts in film studies.

JAMES WALTERS is Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is the author of Fantasy Film
(Berg, 2010) and Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema (Intellect, 2008).

TOM BROWN is Lecturer in the Department of Film, Theatre and Television at the University of Reading, UK. He is the Editor, with James Bennett, of Film and Television After DVD (Routledge, 2008).


 

Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
Preface
PART ONE: CRITICISM 
Shadow Play and Dripping Teat: The Night of the Hunter (1955); T.Gunning 
Between Melodrama and Realism: Under the Skin of the City (2001); L.Mulvey
Internalising the Musical: The Band Wagon (1953); A.Klevan
The Visitor's Discarded Clothes in Theorem (1968); S.Bruzzi
Style and Sincerity in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004); J.Walters
The Moves: Blood (1989); A.Martin
The Properties of Images: Lust for Life (1956); S.Neale
Two Views Over Water: Action and Absorption in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957); E.Gallafent
Making an Entrance: Bette Davis's First Appearance in Jezebel (1938); M.Shingler
A Narrative Parenthesis in Life is Beautiful (1997); D.Thomas
The End of Summer: Conte d'été (1996); J.Leigh
Enter Lisa: Rear Window (1954); D.Pye
Opening Up The Secret Garden (1993); S.Smith
A Magnified Meeting in Written on the Wind (1956); S.Peacock
'Everything is connected, and everything matters': Relationships in I [heart] Huckabees (2004); J.Gibbs 
The Ending of 8 ½ (1963); R.Dyer
PART TWO: HISTORY 
Haptic Vision and Consumerism: a Moment from Fritz Lang's Siegfried (1924); T.Elsaesser
Visions of Sound: City Lights (1931); C.Barr
'Entertainment and dystopia': Maurice Chevalier Performs Avec le sourire (1936); T.Brown
Music, Crime and the Gaze: La Bête humaine (1938); G.Vincendeau
Thunder and Lightning: Gone with the Wind (1939) and the Logic of Synchronisation; R.Altman
Hearing, Fearing: the Sonic Design of Suspense in Cat People (1942); H.Hanson
'I've seen him take his knife…': The Searchers (1956); R.J.Ellis
Another Story: Myth and History in Bonnie and Clyde (1967); P.Cook
A Sculptural Moment: the Epilogue to Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent (1971); M.Broughton
Star Wars (1977): Back and Forth in Time and Space; J.Bignell
Between Freedom and Confinement: Music in The World (2004); C.Gorbman
PART THREE: THEORY 
Performance, with Strings Attached: Team America's (2004) Snub to the Actor; A.Clayton
Éloge de l'amour (2001): Moments in Time; A.Butler
Contested Endings: Interpreting The Piano's (1993) Final Scenes; B.Klinger
Mourning, Loss and Trauma, and the Ambiguities of Proper and Improper Desire in Exotica (1994); E.Cowie
Stepping Out of Blockbuster Mode: the Lighting of the Beacons in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003); K.Thompson
Dorothy's Dream: Mindscreen in The Wizard of Oz (1939); B.F.Kawin
Looking On and Looking the Other Way: Hotel Rwanda (2004) and the Racialised Ethics of Spectatorship; M.Aaron
Working Through the Body: Textual-Corporeal Strategies in United 93 (2006); L.Purse 
'I wasn't expecting that!': Cognition and Shock in Alien's (1979) Chestburster Scene; J.Frome
The Inflection of a Dream in Scarlet Street (1945); G.M.Wilson
Judy's Plan: a Reading of the 'Flashback' Sequence in Vertigo (1958); W.Rothman
Index