One July afternoon in 2003, in a quiet part of Oxfordshire, a scientist went out for a walk and never came back. Dr David Kelly had been all over the news in the preceding days; as an investigator on the team which went into Iraq to check whether they had weapons of mass destruction, he had been accused of anonymously briefing a BBC reporter that the government's case for the Iraq War had been deliberately falsified. When the news came through that his body had been found in woods near his country home, for the briefest of moments, a stunned Britain held its breath and wondered if this was what it had come to. Our intelligence services were already collaborating in the torture of British citizens for reasons of national security. Had they committed murder too? Tony Blair himself was for once without answer. At a press conference in Japan a reporter stood up and asked him if he had blood on his hands. The Prime Minister stood there blinking behind his mask until he walked, shocked, from the podium. But Britain kept calm and carried on. Normal service was resumed, and the world began spinning again. David Kelly, we were told, had committed suicide for personal reasons that had nothing to do with Downing Street or the Iraq War. But not all could believe that. For those that couldn't, they too lost a part of themselves that afternoon. Conspiracy theorists, eccentrics, obsessives, lunatics, paranoids, fantasists, zealots: they had been awarded all these sobriquets and more. Yet it was easy enough to see, lurking behind the cracks and gaps in the government's account, the hulk of a great and deliberate dishonesty. Simply to read about what transpired in Longworth, Oxfordshire on the 17thJuly 2003 made it impossible to believe otherwise.

Black Acting Methods seeks to offer alternatives to the Euro-American performance styles that many actors find themselves working with. A wealth of contributions from directors, scholars and actor trainers address afrocentric processes and aesthetics, and interviews with key figures in Black American theatre illuminate their methods. This ground-breaking collection is an essential resource for teachers, students, actors and directors seeking to reclaim, reaffirm or even redefine the role and contributions of Black culture in theatre arts. Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Black Acting Methods seeks to offer alternatives to the Euro-American performance styles that many actors find themselves working with. A wealth of contributions from directors, scholars and actor trainers address afrocentric processes and aesthetics, and interviews with key figures in Black American theatre illuminate their methods. This ground-breaking collection is an essential resource for teachers, students, actors and directors seeking to reclaim, reaffirm or even redefine the role and contributions of Black culture in theatre arts.

This thought-provoking work examines the dehumanizing depictions of black males in the movies since 1910, analyzing images that were once imposed on black men and are now appropriated and manipulated by them. Moving through cinematic history decade by decade since 1910, this important volume explores the appropriation, exploitation, and agency of black performers in Hollywood by looking at the black actors, directors, and producers who have shaped the image of African American males in film. To determine how these archetypes differentiate African American males in the public's subconscious, the book asks probing questions—for example, whether these images are a reflection of society's fears or realistic depictions of a pluralistic America. Even as the work acknowledges the controversial history of black representation in film, it also celebrates the success stories of blacks in the industry. It shows how blacks in Hollywood manipulate degrading stereotypes, gain control, advance their careers, and earn money while making social statements or bringing about changes in culture. It discusses how social activist performers—such as Paul Robeson, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and Spike Lee—reflect political and social movements in their movies, and it reviews the interactions between black actors and their white counterparts to analyze how black males express their heritage, individual identity, and social issues through film.

Fifteen top cinematographers discuss their approaches to filmmaking, the films on which they have worked, and the techniques they have used to solve specific problems.

Anyone who takes an intelligent interest in theatre-going will find profit and stimulus in this book.

This revised and updated Companion acquaints the student reader with the forms, contexts, critical and theatrical lives of the ten plays considered to be Shakespeare's tragedies. Thirteen essays, written by leading scholars in Britain and North America, address the ways in which Shakespearean tragedy originated, developed and diversified, as well as how it has fared on stage, as text and in criticism. Topics covered include the literary precursors of Shakespeare's tragedies, cultural backgrounds, sub-genres and receptions of the plays. The book examines the four major tragedies and, in addition, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus and Timon of Athens. Essays from the first edition have been fully revised to reflect the most up-to-date scholarship; the bibliography has been extensively updated; and four new chapters have been added, discussing Shakespearean form, Shakespeare and philosophy, Shakespeare's tragedies in performance, and Shakespeare and religion.