Frank Tashlin (1913–1972) was a supremely gifted satirist and visual stylist who made an indelible mark on 1950s Hollywood and American popular culture—first as a talented animator working on Looney Tunes cartoons, then as muse to film stars Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, and Jayne Mansfield. Yet his name is not especially well known today. Long regarded as an anomaly or curiosity, Tashlin is finally given his due in this career-spanning survey. Tashlinesque considers the director's films in the contexts of Hollywood censorship, animation history, and the development of the genre of comedy in American film, with particular emphasis on the sex, satire, and visual flair that comprised Tashlin's distinctive artistic and comedic style. Through close readings and pointed analyses of Tashlin's large and fascinating body of work, Ethan de Seife offers fresh insights into such classic films as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, The Girl Can't Help It, Artists and Models, The Disorderly Orderly, and Son of Paleface, as well as numerous Warner Bros. cartoons starring Porky Pig, among others. This is an important rediscovery of a highly unusual and truly hilarious American artist. Includes a complete filmography.

A cogent and provocative argument about the art of film, Essential Cinema is a fiercely independent reference book of must-see movies for film lovers everywhere.

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Brutal Intimacy is the first book to explore the fascinating films of contemporary France, ranging from mainstream genre spectaculars to arthouse experiments, and from wildly popular hits to films that deliberately alienate the viewer. Twenty-first-century France is a major source of international cinema—diverse and dynamic, embattled yet prosperous—a national cinema offering something for everyone. Tim Palmer investigates France's growing population of women filmmakers, its buoyant vanguard of first-time filmmakers, the rise of the controversial cinema du corps, and France's cinema icons: auteurs like Olivier Assayas, Claire Denis, Bruno Dumont, Gaspar Noé, and stars such as Vincent Cassel and Jean Dujardin. Analyzing dozens of breakthrough films, Brutal Intimacy situates infamous titles alongside many yet to be studied in the English language. Drawing on interviews and the testimony of leading film artists, Brutal Intimacy promises to be an influential treatment of French cinema today, its evolving rivalry with Hollywood, and its ambitious pursuits of audiences in Europe, North America, and around the world.

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.

'Hollywood Independents' explores the crucial period between 1948 and 1962 when independent film producers first became key components of the modern corporate entertainment industry. Mann examines their impact, the decline of the studios, the rise of television, and the rise of potent talent agencies such as MCA.

Historical and theoretical analysis of the “clear line” style in comics and cinema The “clear line”, a term coined in 1977 by Dutch essayist and artist Joost Swarte, has become shorthand in the field of comics studies for the style originally developed by Hergé and the École de Bruxelles. It refers to certain storytelling strategies that generate a deceptively simple, lucid, and hygienic narration: in Philippe Marion’s words, it is a style “made out of light, fluidity and limpid clarity”. By cataloguing and critically analysing clear line comics from historical and theoretical perspectives, this book offers a new outlook on the development of the style in the 20th and 21st centuries, especially focused on the context of the European bande dessinée. In addition, it pioneeringly expands the concept of “clear line” to other artistic domains by introducing and defending its transmedial use, which is particularly relevant for the understanding of the oeuvres of certain filmmakers of the 20th century working in the postwar period, such as Yasujirô Ozu in Japan, Jacques Tati in France and Frank Tashlin in the United States. The Clear Line in Comics and Cinema is therefore a key theoretical work for both bande dessinée enthusiasts and comics scholars, as well as a fundamental contribution to present-day film studies and transmedial narratology.