Ranging over a rich variety of material from film and film literature, and encompassing a critical interrogation of traditional realist ethnographic and cinematic texts, this book highlights the extent to which the cinema has contributed to the rise of voyeurism throughout society. The cinema not only turns its audience into voyeurs, eagerly following the lives of its screen characters, but casts its key players as onlookers, spying on other's lives. The nature of the cinematic voyeur is examined in depth, as are its implications for contemporary society. Norman K Denzin analyzes Hollywood's manipulations of gender, race and class, and, drawing on the work of Foucault, argues that the cinematic gaze must be understood as pa

Fascinating documentation of one of the most important film societies in American history.

A revolutionary reconceptualization of capital and perception during the twentieth century.

By using a series of studies of contemporary mainstream Hollywood movies - Blue Velvet, Wall Street, Crimes and Misdemeanors, When Harry Met Sally, sex lies and videotape, Do the Right Thing - Norman K Denzin explores the tension between ideas of the postmodern, and traditional ways of analyzing society. The discussion moves between two forms of text: social theory and cinematic representations of contemporary life. Denzin analyzes the ideas of society embedded in poststructuralism, postmodernism, feminism, cultural studies and Marxism through the ideas of key theorists (Mills, Baudrillard, Barthes, Habermas, Jameson, Bourdieu, Derrida and others). He relates these ideas to the problematic of the postmodern self as e

By 1940 going to the movies was the most popular form of public leisure in Britain's empire. This book explores the social and cultural impact of the movies in colonial societies in the early cinema age.

Mexican filmmaking is traced from its early beginnings in 1896 to the present in this book. Of particular interest are the great changes from 1990 to 2004: the confluence of talented and dedicated filmmakers, important changes in Mexican cinematic infrastructure and significant social and cultural transformations. From Nicolas Echevarria's Cabeza de Vaca (1991), to the 1992 releases of Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro's Cronos and Alfonso Arau's Como agua para chocolate, to Alfonso Cuaron's Y tu mama tambien (2001), this work provides a close look at Mexican films that received international commercial success and critical acclaim and put Mexico on the cinematic world map. Arranged chronologically, this edition (originally published in 2005) covers the entire scope of Mexican cinema. The main films and their directors are discussed, together with the political, social and economic contexts of the times.

The book presents a rich collection of critical essays, ethnographic writings, memoirs, and reflections, portraying a well-rounded picture of cinema culture and historical change in Pakistan. The multiplicity of voices and approaches enhances the appeal of this collection, which is the first ever to delineate the diversity in the cinematic and extra-cinematic traditions of Pakistan, as well as in the histories of production, exhibition, and reception. The work also highlights aesthetic and affective politics in relation to nationalism; Islamization in policy and practice; the biopolitics of morality, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality; and the phenomenology of film exhibition and urban formation. The book incorporates rarely seen nostalgia items, such as pictures of studio shootings, as well as of film actors, film scenes, posters, and lobby cards.