R. Barton Palmer

Traditions in World Cinema brings together a colorful and wide ranging collection of world cinematic traditions-national, regional, and global-all of which are in need of introduction, investigation and, in some cases, critical reassessment. The movements described range from well-known traditions such as German expressionism, Italian neorealism, French, British, and Czech new wave, and new Hollywood cinema to those of emerging significance, such as Danish Dogma, postcommunist cinema, Brazilian post-Cinema Novo, new Argentine cinema, pre-independence African film traditions, Israeli persecution films, new Iranian cinema, Hindi film songs, Chinese wenyi pian melodrama, Japanese horror, and global found-footage cinema.

Thinking in the Dark introduces readers to twenty-one key theorists whose work has made the greatest impact on film scholarship today, including everyone from Sergei Eisenstein to Michel Foucault, from Judith Butler to André Bazin. Each chapter is written by an expert who explains a different theorist’s key ideas, then gives concrete examples of how they might be applied to both a classic film and a contemporary one. Ideal for teachers and students of film as well as contemporary and modern philosophy, critical theory and semotics, also of interest to the general reader exploring such topics.

Little Solitaire offers the only multidisciplinary critical account of Frankenheimer's oeuvre. Especially emphasized is his deep and passionate engagement with national politics and the irrepressible need of human beings to assert their rights and individuality in the face of organizations that would reduce them to silence and anonymity.

Renowned film scholar R. Barton Palmer explores the historical, ideological, economic, and technical developments that led Hollywood filmmakers of the late 1940s and 1950s to increasingly head outside the studio and capture footage of real places. Examining works ranging from Sunset Blvd. to The Searchers, Shot on Location discovers the massive influence that wartime newsreels had on the postwar Hollywood film, as the blurring of the formal boundaries between cinematic journalism and fiction lent a “reality effect” to otherwise implausible stories. 

Larger Than Life offers a comprehensive view of the star system in 1950s Hollywood and also in-depth discussions of the decade's major stars, including Montgomery Clift, Judy Holliday, Jerry Lewis, James Mason, Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, Jayne Mansfield, and Audrey Hepburn.

Thinking in the Dark introduces readers to twenty-one key theorists whose work has made the greatest impact on film scholarship today, including everyone from Sergei Eisenstein to Michel Foucault, from Judith Butler to André Bazin. Each chapter is written by an expert who explains a different theorist’s key ideas, then gives concrete examples of how they might be applied to both a classic film and a contemporary one. Ideal for teachers and students of film as well as contemporary and modern philosophy, critical theory and semotics, also of interest to the general reader exploring such topics.