Drawing on the work of contemporary French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, Cinema and Contact investigates the aesthe-tics and politics of touch in the cinema of three of the most prominent and distinctive filmmakers to have emerged in France during the last fifty years: Robert Bresson, Marguerite Duras and Claire Denis. Countering the domi-nant critical account of touch elaborated by recent models of embodied spectatorship, this book argues that cinema offers a privileged space for understanding touch in terms of spacing and withdrawal rather than immediacy and continuity. Such a deconstructive configuration of touch is shown here to have far-reaching implications, inviting an innovative rethinking of politics, aesthetics and theology via the textures of cinema. The first study to bring the thought of Nancy into sustained dialogue with a series of detailed analyses of films, Cinema and Contact also forges new interpretative perspectives on Bresson, Duras and Denis, tracing a compelling two-way exchange between cinema and philosophy.

In its first ten years, a small Midwestern cinema has attracted some of the most intriguing and groundbreaking filmmakers from around the world, screened the best in arthouse and repertory films, and presented innovative and unique cinematic experiences. Indiana University Cinema tells the story of how the cinema on the campus of Indiana University Bloomington grew into a vibrant, diverse, and thoughtfully curated cinematheque. Detailing its creation of a transformative cinematic experience throughout its inaugural decade, the IU Cinema has arguably become one of the best venues for watching movies in the country. Featuring 17 exclusive interviews with filmmakers and actors, as well as an afterword from Jonathan Banks (Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul), Indiana University Cinema, is a lavishly illustrated book that is sure to please everyone from the casual moviegoer to the most passionate cinephile.

Investigates how progressivism structured many aspects of understudied era of cinema. Caught between the older model of short film and the emerging classic era, the transitional period of American cinema (1907-1917) has typically posed a problem for studies of early American film. Yet in Cinema and Community: Progressivism, Exhibition, and Film Culture in Chicago, 1907-1917, author Moya Luckett uses the era's dominant political ideology as a lens to better understand its cinematic practice. Luckett argues that movies were a typically Progressive institution, reflecting the period's investment in leisure, its more public lifestyle, and its fascination with celebrity. She uses Chicago, often considered the nation's most Progressive city and home to the nation's largest film audience by 1907, to explore how Progressivism shaped and influenced the address, reception, exhibition, representational strategies, regulation, and cultural status of early cinema. After a survey of Progressivism's general influences on popular culture and the film industry in particular, she examines the era's spectatorship theories in chapter 1 and then the formal characteristics of the early feature film-including the use of prologues, multiple diegesis, and oversight-in chapter 2. In chapter 3, Luckett explores the period's cinema in the light of its celebrity culture, while she examines exhibition in chapter 4. She also looks at the formation of Chicago's censorship board in November 1907 in the context of efforts by city government, social reformers, and the local press to establish community standards for cinema in chapter 5. She completes the volume by exploring race and cinema in chapter 6 and national identity and community, this time in relation to World War I, in chapter 7. As well as offering a history of an underexplored area of film history, Luckett provides a conceptual framework to help navigate some of the period's key issues. Film scholars interested in the early years of American cinema will appreciate this insightful study.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and astronomer Carl Sagan imagines the greatest adventure of all—the discovery of an advanced civilization in the depths of space. In December of 1999, a multinational team journeys out to the stars, to the most awesome encounter in human history. Who—or what—is out there? In Cosmos, Carl Sagan explained the universe. In Contact, he predicts its future—and our own.

During Covid, Executive Director of the Santa Barbara Film Festival and the book's author Roger Durling recommended films to the community of followers of the legendary festival. His insights into each film were often reflections on what was happening around us. Over 100 of his reviews are featured in this anthology along with the complete listing of each film selected and the correlating historical events that sparked his choices."I see the collection as a commemoration of cinema and this period in our lives in which we were forced to pause - and deal with vicissitudes we never imagined we would ever have to grapple with. I see this book as a celebration of how the art of cinema can give hope. We were given time to be introspective and reevaluate life as we knew it. I see cinema as a conduit to allow you to do that."

Science fiction films present hypothetical futures, featuring imagined technological advancements--not yet realized but perhaps (more or less) plausible. Yet how much of what audiences see is within the bounds of possibility? Can we really envision what a black hole looks like? Can dinosaurs really be genetically re-engineered? Originating from an annual Science Fiction Film Series in Denver, Colorado, this volume of essays examines 10 films, with a focus on discerning the possible, the unlikely, and the purely science fictional. With essays by scientists in relevant fields, chapters provide analyses of the movies themselves, along with examination of the actual science (or lack thereof) in each film.