Libros

This book introduces the diverse practices of documentary films in India. It examines the oeuvres of three non-canonical practitioners: ethnographic filmmaker, David MacDougall; northeast India-based moving-image artists group, Desire Machine Collective; and avant-garde filmmaker and cinema philosopher, Kumar Shahani. Sharma offers in-depth analysis of these practitioners' distinct documentary methods and aesthetics, exploring how their oeuvres constitute a critical and self-reflexive approach to documentary-making in India.

The author brings together ideas from film studies, psychoanalysis and philosophy for a study of key films in the career of Ingmar Bergman. Drawing on ideas from Melanie Klein and Jean-Paul Sartre, films ranging from Summer with Monika to Hour of the Wolf are examined in detail. The book argues that Bergman, Klein and Sartre are connected through their central focus on imagination, and that this shared preoccupation represents a challenging alternative to dominant theories in the analysis of film and culture.

In a high-pressure, fast-paced environment, television professionals are focused on the production and coherence of their broadcasts, as well as their responsibility to their audience (both in terms of professional commitment to the viewers and consideration of their evolving tastes). They can rarely take the time to reflect on how their choices of texts and images will be interpreted outside of these more immediate broadcast imperatives; and how their productions are understood and analysed by other professionals, for instance academics, at a different pace and away from the process itself. Such television analysts study the final product and attribute intention with often limited direct knowledge and appreciation of the production processes, its practicalities and imperatives. This book offers the possibility of a reflection on television for and from both parties, as well as an insight into the final product and the choices made during its preparation. This book will be of great interest to students and academics in both linguistics and media, as well as professionals in the broadcasting industry.

Film is often compared to music, explained by the use of musical terms and even conceived and structured using music as a model. The Musicality of Narrative Film is the first book to offer an in-depth examination of the film/music analogy through comparative analysis of both arts' common denominators: time, rhythm and movement. Drawing on a number of examples from contemporary art-house and mainstream cinema, Kulezic-Wilson argues that film's musical potential can be realized through various cinematic devices, with or without music. The book's final section contains detailed case studies of Darren Aronofsky's π, Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and Joe Wright's Anna Karenina, which demonstrate how various factors contribute to achieving the effect of musicality in a large-scale form and how contrasting approaches to film time, rhythm and movement can create very different examples of film musicality.