Auteur: 46 books

Taking a text-led approach, with the emphasis on more recent popular films, Studying French Cinema is directed at non-specialists such as students of French, Film Studies, and the general reader with an interest in post-war French cinema. Each of the chapters focuses on one or more key films from...

In this accessible introduction to early and silent cinema, which is currently enjoying a renaissance, both academically and in the popular imagination thanks to The Artist, Keith Withall provides both a comprehensive chronology of the period until the birth of sound and also a series of detailed...

Talk to Her (2002) is a hugely rich and interesting though ambiguous film that met with both popular success and critical acclaim. The film won an Oscar for best original screenplay and has been hailed by some critics as Pedro Almodóvar's masterpiece. Yet like most of Almodóvar's films, little is...

Louis XVI n’était pas fait pour régner, il n’avait tout simplement pas une personnalité convenant à un dirigeant, a fortiori absolu. Cet ouvrage retrace le gâchis des sept premières années d’un règne qui survint alors que la France était embourbée dans les difficultés et la morosité,...

Consigned to the deep freeze of critical and commercial reception upon its release in 1982, The Thing has bounced back spectacularly to become one of the most highly regarded productions from the 1980s 'Body Horror' cycle of films, experiencing a wholesale and detailed reappraisal that has secured...

The horror film reveals as much, if not more, about the British psyche as the more respectable heritage film or the critically revered social realist drama. Yet, like a mad relative locked in the attic, British horror cinema has for too long been ignored and maligned. Even when it has been celebrated,...

No-one who has ever seen the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is ever likely to forget the experience. An intense fever dream (or nightmare), it is remarkable for its sense of sustained threat and depiction of an insane but nonetheless (dys)functional family on the furthest reaches of...

When Candyman was released in 1992, Roger Ebert gave it his thumbs up, remarking that the film was “scaring him with ideas and gore, rather than just gore.” Indeed, Candyman is almost unique in 1990s horror cinema in that it tackles its sociopolitical themes head on. As critic Kirsten Moana Thompson...

Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010) is a difficult film to categorize. It partakes of various genres, blurring the distinctions between them. Yes, it is science fiction but it does not contain many of the ingredients associated with that genre. It can also be identified as a kind of heist film, and...

As one of the most globally recognisable instances of 20th century Eurohorror, Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1976) is poetic, chaotic, and intriguing. The cult reputation of Argento’s baroque nightmare is reflected in the critical praise it continues to receive almost 40 years after its original release,...

Somewhat overlooked upon its initial release in 1995, John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness has since developed a healthy cult reputation. But far more than simply a fan favorite, this closing installment of the acclaimed director's self-described "apocalypse trilogy" (following The Thing...

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, directed by German director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau in 1922, is not only regarded as one of the most intriguing and disquieting films to have been produced during the years of Weimar cinema but is also a key step in establishing the vampire as a cinematic figure and...

Few films have had the influence and impact of The Blair Witch Project (1999). Its arrival was a horror cinema palette cleanser after a decade of serial killers and postmodern intertextuality, a bare bones 'found footage' trend setter. In this Devil's Advocate, Peter Turner tells the story of the...

This book traces the historical evolution of Indian cinema through a number of key decades. The book is made up of 14 chapters with each chapter focusing on one key film, the chosen films analysed in their wider social, political and historical context whilst a concerted engagement with various ideological...