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The Alexander Medvedkin Reader
by Nikita Lary Jay Leyda Alexander MedvedkinFilmmaker Alexander Medvedkin (1900-89), a contemporary of Sergei Eisenstein and Alexander Dovzhenko, is celebrated today for his unique form of "total" documentary cinema, which aimed to bridge the distance between film and life, as well as for his use of satire during a period when the Soviet authorities preferred that laughter be confined to narrowly prescribed channels. This collection of selected writings by Medvedkin is the first of its kind and reveals how his work is a crucial link in the history of documentary film. Although he was a dedicated Communist, Medvedkin's satirical approach and social critiques ultimately led to his suppression by the Soviet regime. State institutions held back or marginalized his work, and for many years, his films were assumed to have been lost or destroyed. These texts, many assembled for this volume by Medvedkin himself, document for the first time his considerable achievements, experiments in film and theater, and attempts to develop satire as a major Soviet film genre. Through scripts, letters, autobiographical writings, and more, we see a Medvedkin supported and admired by figures like Eisenstein, Dovzhenko, and Maxim Gorky.
Alexander Payne: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers Series)
by Julie LevinsonSince 1996, Alexander Payne (b. 1961) has made seven feature films and a short segment of an omnibus movie. Although his body of work is quantitatively small, it is qualitatively impressive. His movies have garnered numerous accolades and awards, including two Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay. As more than one interviewer in this volume points out, he maintains an impressive and unbroken winning streak. Payne's stories of human strivings and follies, alongside his mastery of the craft of filmmaking, mark him as a contemporary auteur of uncommon accomplishment. In this first compilation of his interviews, Payne reveals himself as a captivating conversationalist as well. The discussions collected here range from 1996, shortly after the release of his first film, Citizen Ruth, to the 2013 debut of his film, Nebraska. He also mentions the long process of bringing to fruition his most recent film, Downsizing. Over his career, he muses on many subjects including his own creative processes, his commitment to telling character-centered stories, and his abiding admiration for movies and directors from across decades of film history. Critics describe Payne as one of the few contemporary filmmakers who consistently manages to buck the current trend toward bombastic blockbusters. Like the 1970s director-driven cinema that he cherishes, his films are small-scale character studies that manage to maintain a delicate balance between sharp satire and genuine poignancy.
The Alexander Technique: Twelve fundamentals of integrated movement
by Penelope EastenThis book gets back to the core of the Alexander Technique (AT), much of which is not known even to most teachers. This is because Alexander (1869-1955) changed what he was doing at least three times, around 1912, 1923, and 1930, each time leaving key elements behind, unexplained. These lost elements include natural breathing, his biomechanics to alter the body for ourselves, the real thought processes of his directions, how he used inhibition and quiet attentiveness to discover intrinsic movement patterns, and how he used vision as part of his process. There are snippets of AT history throughout, and a potted history of what really happened in the AT, as it has not been told before, but the emphasis is on AT in the context of integrated movement.
Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination: A Critical Companion (Palgrave Science Fiction and Fantasy: A New Canon)
by D. Harlan WilsonIn this comprehensive study of The Stars My Destination, D. Harlan Wilson makes a case for the continued significance of Alfred Bester’s SF masterwork, exploring its distinctive style, influences, intertextuality, affect, and innovation as well as its extensive metafictional properties. In Stars, Bester established himself as a son of the pulp-SF and high-modernist writers that preceded him and a forefather to the New Wave and cyberpunk movements that followed his lead. Wilson’s study depicts Bester as an SF insider as much as an outlier, writing in the spirit of the genre but breaking with the fixation on hard science in favor of psychological interiority, literary experimentation, and adult themes. The book combines close-readings of the novel with broader concerns about contemporary media, technoculture, and the current state of SF itself. In Wilson’s view, SF is a moribund artform, and Stars foresaw the inevitable science fictionalization of our benighted world. With scholarly lucidity and precision, Wilson shows us that Stars pointed the way to what we have (un)become.
Alfred Hitchcock
by Peter AckroydA gripping short biography of the extraordinary Alfred Hitchock, the master of suspense. Alfred Hitchcock was a strange child. Fat, lonely, burning with fear and ambition, his childhood was an isolated one, scented with fish from his father's shop. Afraid to leave his bedroom, he would plan great voyages, using railway timetables to plot an exact imaginary route across Europe. So how did this fearful figure become the one of the most respected film directors of the twentieth century? As an adult, Hitch rigorously controlled the press's portrait of him, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring all others out. In this quick-witted portrait, Ackroyd reveals something more: a lugubriously jolly man fond of practical jokes, who smashes a once-used tea cup every morning to remind himself of the frailty of life. Iconic film stars make cameo appearances, just as Hitch did in his own films: Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, and James Stewart despair of his detached directing style and, perhaps most famously of all, Tippi Hedren endures cuts and bruises from a real-life fearsome flock of birds. Alfred Hitchcock wrests the director's chair back from the master of control and discovers what lurks just out of sight, in the corner of the shot.
Alfred Hitchcock
by Nicholas HaeffnerNicholas Haeffner provides a comprehensive introduction to Alfred Hitchcock's major British and Hollywood films and usefully navigates the reader through a wealth of critical commentaries. One of the acknowledged giants of film, Hitchcock's prolific half-century career spanned the silent and sound eras and resulted in 53 films of which Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960) are now seen as classics within the suspense, melodrama and horror genres. In contrast to previous works, which have attempted to get inside Hitchcock's mind and psychoanalyse his films, this book takes a more materialist stance. As Haeffner makes clear, Hitchcock was simultaneously a professional film maker working as part of a team in the film factories of Hollywood, a media celebrity, and an aspiring artist gifted with considerable entrepreneurial flair for marketing himself and his films. The book makes a case for locating the director's remarkable body of work within traditions of highbrow, middlebrow and lowbrow culture, appealing to different audience constituencies in a calculated strategy. The book upholds the case for taking Hitchcock's work seriously and challenges his popular reputation as a misogynist through detailed analyses of his most controversial films.
Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light
by Patrick McgilliganIn a career that spanned six decades and more than sixty films, Alfred Hitchcock became the most widely recognized director who ever lived. His films -- including The 39 Steps, Notorious, Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds -- set new standards for cinematic invention and storytelling Élan. Since his death, Hitchcock has become crystallized in the public imagination as the macabre Englishman, the sexual obsessive, the Master of Suspense. But this remarkable biography draws on prodigious new research to restore Hitchcock the man -- the ingenious craftsman, the avid collaborator, the constant trickster, provocateur, and romantic. Like Hitchcock's best films, Patrick McGilligan's life of Hitchcock is a drama full of revelation, graced by a central love story, dark humor, and cliff-hanging suspense: a definitive portrait of the most creative, and least understood, figure in film history.
Alfred Hitchcock All the Films: The Story Behind Every Movie, Episode, and Short
by Bernard Benoliel Gilles Esposito Murielle Joudet Jean-François RaugerOrganized chronologically and covering every short film, television episode, and classic film that the "Master of Suspense" directed over the course of his illustrious, 60-year career, Alfred Hitchcock All the Films draws upon years of research to tell the behind the scenes stories of how each project was conceived, cast, and produced, down to the creation of the costumes, the search for perfect locations, and of course, the direction of some of cinema's most memorable scenes. Spanning more than six decades, and including stories of work with longtime collaborators like costume designer Edith Head, title designer Saul Bass, and composer Bernard Herrmann, this book details the creative processes that resulted in numerous classic films like Vertigo,The Birds,Psycho, Rear Window, North By Northwest,andTo Catch a Thief (to name a few). The director's classic TV series are also covered extensively along with original release dates, lesser-known short films, box office totals, surreptitious casting details, and other insider scoops that will keep fans and students alike turning pages. Alfred Hitchcock All the Films is the perfect book for the movie fan in your life.
Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho
by Stephen RebelloA &“meticulous history&” of the classic suspense film based on exclusive interviews with the director, writers, cast, and crew (The New York Times Book Review).First released in June 1960, Psycho altered the landscape of horror films forever. But just as compelling as the movie itself is the story behind it, which has been adapted as a movie starring Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock, Helen Mirren as his wife Alma Reville, and Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh. Stephen Rebello brings to life the creation of one of Hollywood&’s most iconic films, from the story of Wisconsin murderer Ed Gein, the real-life inspiration for the character of Norman Bates, to Hitchcock&’s groundbreaking achievements in cinematography, sound, editing, and promotion. Packed with captivating insights from the film&’s stars, writers, and crewmembers, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho is a riveting and definitive history of a signature Hitchcock cinematic masterpiece.
Alfred Hitchcock Storyboards
by Tony Lee MoralA one-of-a-kind historical document and celebration of the artwork behind several of the Master of Suspense&’s greatest films.This stunning coffee table book focuses on the storyboards for nine of Alfred Hitchcock&’s classic movies – Vertigo, The Birds, Psycho, North by Northwest, The 39 Steps, Torn Curtain, Marnie, Shadow of a Doubt and Spellbound. It includes never before-published images and incisive text putting the material in context and examining the role the pieces played in some of the most unforgettable scenes in cinema. Hitchcock author and aficionado Tony Lee Moral provides a fascinating and illuminating insight into the directorial mind of the Master of Suspense.
Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy: The Last Masterpiece
by Raymond FoeryAfter an unparalleled string of artistic and commercial triumphs in the 1950s and 1960s, Alfred Hitchcock hit a career lull with the disappointing Torn Curtain and the disastrous Topaz. In 1971, the depressed director traveled to London, the city he had left in 1939 to make his reputation in Hollywood. The film he came to shoot there would mark a return to the style for which he had become known and would restore him to international acclaim. Like The 39 Steps, Saboteur, and North by Northwest before, Frenzy repeated the classic Hitchcock trope of a man on the run from the police while chasing down the real criminal. But unlike those previous works, Frenzy also featured some elements that were new to the master of suspense’s films, including explicit nudity, depraved behavior, and a brutal act that would challenge Psycho’s shower scene for the most disturbing depiction of violence in a Hitchcock film. In Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy: The Last Masterpiece, Raymond Foery recounts the history—writing, preprod
Ali in Wonderland: And Other Tall Tales
by Ali WentworthGrowing up in a family of political journalists-and daughter of President Reagan's White House social secretary-Ali Wentworth rebelled against her blue-blood upbringing, embracing Hollywood, motorcycles, even a few wildly inappropriate marriage proposals. Today she is an acclaimed comedic actress and writer, former Oprah regular, wife of political and media star George Stephanopoulos, and a mother who lets her two girls eat cotton candy before bed. Though she's settled down, her rebellious nature thrives in her comedy and her view of her crazy world. In this addictively funny and warm memoir, she takes us through the looking glass and into the wonderland of her life, from a childhood among Washington's elite to a stint in the psych ward they called a New England prep school; days doing L.A. sketch comedy (with then-aspiring artists Will Ferrell and Lisa Kudrow) to a series of spectacularly failed loves (that eventually led her to Mr. Right). Constant throughout is her mother, Muffie-a flawlessly elegant yet firm, no-nonsense force of nature and pure WASP convictions. As charming and off-the-wall as Ali herself, Ali in Wonderland is an entertaining look at life that is both intimate and hilarious.
Alice Cooper, Golf Monster
by Keith Zimmerman Alice Cooper Kent ZimmermanAlice Cooper is hotter than ever, still playing up to 100 gigs a year with his his audiences growing younger. But 300 days a year, he is out on the golf course. That's because Alice credits golf as helping him overcome a self-destructive spiral into alcoholism. It's also because Alice turned out to be almost as good a golfer as he is a rocker. This book blends a rocker's uproarious tales of excess with a no holds-barred account of how Cooper substituted alcohol addiction with the lesser evil of hitting a little white ball. Alice Coopers rock 'n' roll's original misanthrope, the ultimate shock-rock, heavy-metal bad boy. With golf, as in music, he was way ahead of the cultural curve, his passion for the game predating golf's popularity surge among younger folks, hip professional athletes, and indeed Alice's music contemporaries, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Iggy Pop and Roger Waters. The nearest Alice Cooper has come to writing his autobiography. He is still a major rock touring artist. This title includes the story of his musical career and of his rehabilitation. It is a fascinating self-help programme by an unlikely role model.
Alice in Orchestralia
by Ernest La PradeThis book is about musical instruments, the orchestra, and the nature of music through an Alice-like nonsense narrative.
Alice in Wonderland in Film and Popular Culture
by Antonio SannaThis book examines the many reincarnations of Carroll’s texts, illuminating how the meaning of the original books has been re-negotiated through adaptations, appropriations, and transmediality. The volume is an edited collection of eighteen essays and is divided into three sections that examine the re-interpretations of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass in literature, film, and other media (including the branches of commerce, music videos, videogames, and madness studies). This collection is an addition to the existing work on Alice in Wonderland and its sequels, adaptations, and appropriations, and helps readers to have a more comprehensive view of the extent to which the Alice story world is vast and always growing.
Alice's Piano: The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer
by Melissa Müller Reinhard PiechockiHow music provided hope in one of the world's darkest times—the inspirational life story of Alice Herz-Sommer, the oldest living Holocaust survivorAlice Herz-Sommer was born in Prague in 1903. A talented pianist from a very early age, she became famous throughout Europe; but, as the Nazis rose to power, her world crumbled. In 1942, her mother was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and vanished. In 1943, Alice, her husband and their six-year-old son were sent there, too. In the midst of horror, music, especially Chopin's Etudes, was Alice's salvation. Theresienstadt was a "show camp", a living slice of Nazi propaganda created to convince outsiders that the Jews were being treated humanely. In more than a hundred concerts, Alice gave her fellow prisoners hope in a time of suffering. Written with the cooperation of Alice Herz-Sommer, Melissa Müller and Reinhard Piechocki's Alice's Piano is the first time her story has been told. At 107 years old, she continues to play her piano in London and bring hope to many.
Alicia Alonso: First Lady of the Ballet
by Sandra Martin ArnoldA biography of the Cuban ballerina who founded her own ballet school and company, performed with the Ballet Russe, and continued to dance even after she lost her sight.
Alicia Alonso Takes the Stage (Rebel Girls Chapter Books)
by Rebel Girls Nancy Ohlin"With this powerful, hope-filled story of overcoming one's obstacles, readers will close this book and feel inspired to leave a legacy of their own." -School Library JournalFrom the world of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls comes the historical novel based on the life of Alicia Alonso, a world-renowned prima ballerina from Cuba.Alicia was born to dance. From the moment she slips on pointe shoes for the first time, she's determined to become a professional ballerina. A few years later, Alicia moves from Cuba to the United States to follow her dreams.Then, Alicia begins to lose her sight. How can a ballerina dance if she can't see where she's going? Stuck in bed and only able to practice with her fingertips, Alicia doesn't give up. She finds a way to get back on stage, dancing into the hearts of audiences as one of the world's most famous prima ballerinas.Alicia Alonso Takes the Stage is the story of a world-renowned prima ballerina who impressed people all over the world with her beautiful dancing while living with visual impairments. This is a story about perseverance in the face of adversity, and how the arts can afford women the opportunity to achieve a global impact.This historical fiction chapter book includes additional text on Alicia Alonso's lasting legacy, as well as movement-based activities designed to encourage creativity and confidence through dance.About the Rebel Girls Chapter Book SeriesMeet extraordinary real-life heroines in the Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls chapter book series! Introducing stories based on the lives of extraordinary women in global history, each stunningly designed chapter book features beautiful illustrations from a female artist as well as bonus activities in the backmatter to encourage kids to explore the various fields in which each of these women thrived. The perfect gift to inspire any young reader!
Alien Bodies: Representations of Modernity, 'Race' and Nation in Early Modern Dance
by Ramsay BurtAlien Bodies is a fascinating examination of dance in Germany, France, and the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. Ranging across ballet and modern dance, dance in the cinema and Revue, Ramsay Burt looks at the work of European, African American, and white American artists. Among the artists who feature are: * Josephine Baker * Jean Borlin * George Balanchine * Jean Cocteau * Valeska Gert * Katherine Dunham * Fernand Leger * Kurt Jooss * Doris Humphrey Concerned with how artists responded to the alienating experiences of modern life, Alien Bodies focuses on issues of: * national and 'racial' identity * the new spaces of modernity * fascists uses of mass spectacles * ritual and primitivism in modern dance * the 'New Woman' and the slender modern body
Alien-Invasion Films: Imperialism, Race and Gender in the American Security State, 1950-2020
by Mark E. WildermuthThis book studies American science fiction films depicting invasions of the USA and Earth by extra- terrestrials within the context of imperialism from 1950–2020. It shows how such films imagine America and its allies as objects of colonial control. This trope enables filmmakers to explore the ethics of American interventionism abroad either by defending the status quo or by questioning interventionism. The study shows how these films comment on American domestic hegemonic practices regarding racial or gender hierarchies, as well as hegemonic practices abroad. Beginning with the Cold War consensus in the 1950s, the study shows how hegemony at home and abroad promotes division in the culture.
Alien Superstar (Alien Superstar #1)
by Henry Winkler Lin OliverNo one is shocked by the six-eyed alien strolling around the Universal back lot. The tourists just think he’s part of the show. It doesn’t take long for Buddy to land a role on a popular TV show, playing (of course) an alien. He becomes an overnight heartthrob and is suddenly faced with legions of adoring fans, rides in glamorous limos, and appearances at “all-the-shrimp-you-can-eat” red carpet parties. But can Buddy maintain his secret identity while in the spotlight?
Alien Superstar (Alien Superstar)
by Henry Winkler Lin OliverA six-eyed teenage alien refugee becomes a Hollywood star in this hilarious series opener by the bestselling authors of the Hank Zipzer series.When thirteen-year-old Buddy Burger has to flee from his alien planet, he crash lands in an even wilder place: Hollywood, California. But no one is shocked to see a six-eyed alien strolling around the Universal back lot. The tourists just think he’s an actor in a supercool alien costume.And the fancy Hollywood directors take notice too. They cast Buddy in a popular TV show playing (of course) an alien. After a video of his first episode goes viral, he becomes an overnight sensation, and suddenly, his world is filled with adoring fans, rides in glamorous limos, and appearances at all-the-shrimp-you-can-eat red carpet parties!Will Buddy be able to keep his secret when all eyes are on him? Or will the glitz and glam of Hollywood prove too much for this alien superstar?“Alien Superstar has it all . . . action, suspense, and big laughs!” —Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series“Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver keep us laughing while slipping in a lesson for kids—accept everyone as they are, even if they have suction cups for feet. Alien Superstar is a super fun read for middle grades on up.” —Jennifer Garner“A funny interstellar adventure that will have readers watching the cosmos for the second book to arrive.” —SLJ Review"Winkler and Oliver bring their sharply honed sense of comedy and extensive experience in the television industry to Buddy’s antics on the set. . . . This results in an endearingly strange protagonist that will resonate with any kid who has felt like an outsider. A sense of humor and empathy are required for this zany adventure.” —Booklist
Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-91
by Branislav JakovljevicIn the 1970s, Yugoslavia emerged as a dynamic environment for conceptual and performance art. At the same time, it pursued its own form of political economy of socialist self-management. Alienation Effects argues that a deep relationship existed between the democratization of the arts and industrial democracy, resulting in a culture difficult to classify. The book challenges the assumption that the art emerging in Eastern Europe before 1989 was either "official" or "dissident" art; and shows thatthe break up of Yugoslavia was not a result of "ancient hatreds" among its peoples but instead came from the distortion and defeat of the idea of self-management. The case studies include mass performances organized during state holidays; proto-performance art, such as the 1954 production of Waiting for Godot in a former concentration camp in Belgrade; student demonstrations in 1968; and body art pieces by Gina Pane, Joseph Beuys, Marina Abramovic, and others. Alienation Effects sheds new light on the work of well-known artists and scholars, including early experimental poetry by Slavoj Ž iž ek, as well as performance and conceptual artists that deserve wider, international attention.
Aliens Are Coming!
by Meghan MccarthyIt was an ordinary night in October of 1938 until a news bulletin interrupted the dance music on CBS radio–aliens were invading the United States! Meghan McCarthy’s hilarious Aliens Are Coming!tells the true story of the Halloween radio prank that duped much of the country into believing that Martians had invaded. The book uses excerpts from the actual War of the Worlds radio broadcast and includes information about the importance of radios in the 1930s (before the time of televisions and computers) as well as facts about Orson Welles and H. G. Wells, author of the novel on which the broadcast was based.
Alison, Who Went Away
by Vivian Vande VeldeFourteen-year-old Susan (or, as she prefers to be called, Sybil) has been trying to reinvent herself ever since the mysterious disappearance of her older sister, Alison. Life has been very confusing since Alison left. Susan's mother has become overly protective, fearful of losing another child. Her new school is not all bad, of course, but it is different and puzzling. Her best friend, Connie, has what could be a wonderful idea -- or maybe it has the makings of a disaster: if they sign up for the school play, they might end up with dates for the freshman dance. Readers will empathize with Susan's attempt to make sense of her confused world, the loss of her sister, a new school, turmoil at home, and the growing pains of adolescence. But Susan, despite all, remains bright, funny, and self aware with the help of a new and intelligently supportive stepfather and a lively group of school friends. The story is believable and touching and distinguished by the narrator's voice.