Libros

José Luis Castro —profesor del Departamento de Arte de la Universidad de Vigo— asegura que todavía que­da mucho campo en el estudio de la obra de Alfred Hitchcock y su influencia en la evolución del lenguaje del cine desde su llegada a Hollywood en 1939 contra­tado por David O’Selznick. Pero para comprenderlo, explica Castro, hay que remontarse a la etapa británica del director —quizá algo relegada en otros análisis—, donde ya se encuentra el origen de algunas de sus constantes semánticas y estilísticas. Y no hay que perder de vista el momento histórico en el que se desarrolla su obra. Con estos dos puntos siempre presentes, el autor profundiza en el lenguaje de este maestro del cine, a la vez que lo sitúa en el contexto en el que se formó y evolucionó.

Critical Cinema: Beyond the Theory of Practice purges the obstructive line between the making of and the theorising on film, uniting theory and practice in order to move beyond the commercial confines of Hollywood. Opening with an introduction by Bill Nichols, one of the world's leading writers on nonfiction film, this volume features contributions by such prominent authors as Noel Burch, Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen, Brian Winston and Patrick Fuery. Seminal filmmakers such as Peter Greenway and Mike Figgis also contribute to the debate, making this book a critical text for students, academics, and independent filmmakers as well as for any reader interested in new perspectives on culture and film.

The history of postwar German cinema has most often been told as a story of failure, a failure paradoxically epitomized by the remarkable popularity of film throughout the late 1941s and 1950s. Through the analysis of 10 representative films, Hester Baer reassesses this period, looking in particular at how the attempt to ‘dismantle the dream factory’ of Nazi entertainment cinema resulted in a new cinematic language which developed as a result of the changing audience demographic. In an era when female viewers comprised 70 per cent of cinema audiences a ‘women’s cinema’ emerged, which sought to appeal to female spectators through its genres, star choices, stories and formal conventions. In addition to analyzing the formal language and narrative content of these films, Baer uses a wide array of other sources to reconstruct the original context of their reception, including promotional and publicity materials, film programs, censorship documents, reviews and spreads in fan magazines. This book presents a new take on an essential period, which saw the rebirth of German cinema after its thorough delegitimization under the Nazi regime.