{"title":"Dana Polan","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the insightful world of Dana Polan, a captivating author known for his profound explorations of film, culture, and society. His works offer a unique lens on the stories that shape us.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"dreams-of-flight-book-dana-polan-9780520379305","title":"Dreams of Flight","description":"The first full-length study of the iconic 1960s film The Great Escape and its place in Hollywood and American history.Escaped POW Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen) on a stolen motorcycle jumps an imposing barbed wire fence—caught on film, the act and its aftermath have become an unforgettable symbol of triumph as well as defeat for 1960s America. Combining production and reception history with close reading, Dreams of Flight offers the first full-length study of The Great Escape, the classic film based on a true story of Allied prisoners who hatched an audacious plan to divert and thwart the Wehrmacht and escape into the nearby countryside.   Through breezy prose and pithy analysis, Dana Polan centers The Great Escape within American cultural and intellectual history, drawing a vivid picture of the country in the 1960s. We see a nation grappling with its own military history, a society undergoing significant shifts in its culture and identity, and a film industry in transition from Old Hollywood's big-budget runaway studio films to the slow interior cinema of New Hollywood. Dreams of Flight combines this context with fan anecdotes and a close study of filmic style to bring readers into the film and trace its wide-reaching influence. Polan examines the production history, including prior adaptations in radio and television of celebrated author Paul Brickhill's original nonfiction book about the escape, and he compares the cinematic fiction to the real events of the escape in 1944. Dreams of Flight also traces the afterlife of The Great Escape in the many subsequent movies, TV commercials, and cartoons that reference it, whether reverentially or with humor.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49528373543185,"sku":"GOR013639364","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49741499072785,"sku":"NGR9780520379305","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51002962215185,"sku":"NIN9780520379305","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53521176133905,"sku":"NLS9780520379305","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0520379306.jpg?v=1751439538"},{"product_id":"pulp-fiction-book-dana-polan-9780851708089","title":"Pulp Fiction","description":"Dana Polan sets out to unlock the style and technique of 'Pulp Fiction'. He shows how broad Tarantino's points of reference are, and analyzes the narrative accomplishment and complexity. In addition, Polan argues that macho attitudes celebrated in film are much more complex than they seem.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49577422979345,"sku":"GOR010747909","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49729452278033,"sku":"NGR9780851708089","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49757705077009,"sku":"GOR001645103","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49757870096657,"sku":"CIN0851708080G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49976724619537,"sku":"CIN0851708080VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51606595731729,"sku":"GOR003908061","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0851708080.jpg?v=1750946985"},{"product_id":"jane-campion-book-dana-polan-9780851708560","title":"Jane Campion","description":"With the phenomenal success of \"The Piano\" (1993), Jane Campion became revered by many as the leading female film director of the 1990s. In this book, Dana Polan examines the phenomenon of \"The Piano\" and how it develops from the early shorts and first features which evoke an often surreal and critical distanced style of looking at everyday issues. Looking at all of Campion's work before and since, including \"Holy Smoke\" (1999), which returned again to the battleground of gender politics, the author concludes his survey of the director's work by offering some hypotheses about the erotic thriller \"The Cut\" (2001) whilst asking what variety of approaches to the study of directors might now be fruitful.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49585226580241,"sku":"GOR002993545","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0851708560.jpg?v=1751363148"},{"product_id":"sopranos-book-dana-polan-9780822344100","title":"The Sopranos","description":"“In its original run on HBO, The Sopranos mattered, and it matters still,” Dana Polan asserts early in this analysis of the hit show, in which he sets out to clarify the impact and importance of the series in both its cultural and media-industry contexts. A renowned film and TV scholar, Polan combines a close and extended reading of the show itself—and of select episodes and scenes—with broader attention to the social landscape with which it is in dialogue. For Polan, The Sopranos is a work of playful irony that complicates simplistic attempts to grasp its meanings and values. The show seductively beckons the viewer into an amoral universe, hinting at ways to make sense of its ethically complicated situations, only to challenge the viewer’s complacent grasp of things. It deftly exploits the interplay between art culture and popular culture by mixing elements of art cinema—meandering plots, narrative breaks, and an uncertain progression—with the allure of a soap opera, delving into its characters’ sex lives, mob rivalries, and parent–child conflicts.A show about corrupt figures who parasitically try to squeeze illicit profit from the system, The Sopranos itself seems a target of attempts to glom on to its fame as a successful TV series: attempts by media executives, marketers, critics and writers, and even presidential candidates. “Everyone wants a piece of Sopranos action,” says Polan, and he traces the marketing of the series across both official and unauthorized media platforms, including cookbooks, games, DVDs, and the kitschy Sopranos bus tour. Critiquing previous books on The Sopranos, Polan suggests that in their quest to find deep meaning, many of the authors missed the show’s ironic and comedic side.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49592986894609,"sku":"GOR009762483","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008544801041,"sku":"NIN9780822344100","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0822344106.jpg?v=1761390793"},{"product_id":"lego-movie-book-dana-polan-9781477321577","title":"The LEGO Movie","description":"What happens when we set out to understand LEGO not just as a physical object but as an idea, an icon of modernity, an image—maybe even a moving image? To what extent can the LEGO brick fit into the multimedia landscape of popular culture, especially film culture, today? Launching from these questions, Dana Polan traces LEGO from thing to film and asserts that The LEGO Movie is an exemplar of key directions in mainstream cinema, combining the visceral impact of effects and spectacle with ironic self-awareness and savvy critique of mass culture as it reaches for new heights of creativity.  Incorporating insights from conversations with producer Dan Lin and writer-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Polan examines the production and reception of The LEGO Movie and closely analyzes the film within popular culture at large and in relation to LEGO as a toy and commodity. He identifies the film’s particular stylistic and narrative qualities, its grasp of and response to the culture industry, and what makes it a distinctive work of animation within the seeming omnipresence of animation in Hollywood, and reveals why the blockbuster film, in all its silliness and seriousness, stands apart as a divergent cultural work.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49736828322065,"sku":"NGR9781477321577","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50953649815825,"sku":"CIN1477321578G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51417125093649,"sku":"CIN1477321578VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1477321578.jpg?v=1761390166"},{"product_id":"in-a-lonely-place-book-dana-polan-9780851703602","title":"\"In a Lonely Place\"","description":"\"In a Lonely Place\" is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray, and starring Ray's then wife, Gloria Grahame, and Humphrey Bogart as a jaundiced Hollywood scriptwriter. Dana Polan explores the film's production history, its relation to Dorothy Hughes' original novel and the noir tradition, and examines its strange relation to the film-making world in which it is set. This text is part of the \"BFI Film Classics\" series. Each volume in the series presents a personal commentary on the film, together with a brief production history and a detailed filmography, notes and bibliography.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50254506623249,"sku":"GOR002547663","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50337915175185,"sku":"CIN0851703607VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51402620174609,"sku":"CIN0851703607G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0851703607.jpg?v=1751265561"},{"product_id":"close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-book-dana-polan-9781839025778","title":"Close Encounters of the Third Kind","description":"Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) is a film very much of its cinematic moment, combining the gritty realism of entrapment in the everyday with furtive dreams of escape.   Dana Polan's compelling study of the film examines its significance to New Hollywood cinema and the science fiction genre. He argues that Close Encounters is a film that is an allegory of the cinematic experience overall; it both narrates a tale of visual seduction and plays it out viscerally for the spectator who shares the amazement of the protagonist Roy Neary as his mundane reality is transformed into something awe-inspiring.    Providing an in-depth look into the film's production history, including all three different versions, Polan situates Close Encounters within Spielberg's repertoire. He argues that despite the film's popular success, it is in fact a rejection of several entrenched American values, including family, home and marriage. It offers, through its visual fascination, alternative understandings of masculinity and morality, familial responsibility, and what it means to follow the 'American Dream'.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50419797328145,"sku":"NGR9781839025778","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51056271163665,"sku":"NIN9781839025778","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51361039122705,"sku":"GOR014239268","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51376755933457,"sku":"GOR014246002","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1839025778.jpg?v=1750898941"},{"product_id":"julia-child-s-the-french-chef-book-dana-polan-9780822348726","title":"Julia Child's the French Chef","description":"Dana Polan considers what made Julia Childs TV show, The French Chef, so popular during its original broadcast and such enduring influences on American cooking, American television, and American culture since then.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51332455268625,"sku":"CIN0822348721VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53264070213905,"sku":"CIN0822348721G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0822348721.jpg?v=1761391664"},{"product_id":"pulp-fiction-book-dana-polan-9781839027598","title":"Pulp Fiction","description":"Pulp Fiction was one of the films that defined American cinema of the 1990s, and remains one of the stand-out movies of its director Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino's style - violent, fast, funny and full of knowing pop culture references - epitomises 90s post-modernism. Pulp Fiction was a phenomenal cult success and one of the first films to generate hot debate in internet chatrooms and on fan websites.  Dana Polan's compelling analysis sets out to uncover the style and technique of Pulp Fiction. He shows how broad Tarantino's points of reference are, and analyzes the film's narrative accomplishment and complexity. Where some critics dismissed Pulp Fiction for its violence and its worship of a certain brand of cool, Polan shows how the film exemplifies new kinds of engagement with cultural and social codes, such as those around racial identity.  In addition, Polan argues that the film's celebration of macho attitudes is more nuanced than might first appear.   In a new afterword to this new edition, Polan looks back on Pulp Fiction 30 years after its first release.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51627659886865,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51627660083473,"sku":"NGR9781839027598","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51691084448017,"sku":"GOR014363289","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52653848658193,"sku":"NLS9781839027598","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1839027592.jpg?v=1751123011"},{"product_id":"goodfellas-book-dana-polan-9781805750505","title":"Goodfellas","description":"Martin Scorsese's 1990 movie Goodfellas, starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco and Paul Sorvino, narrates the rise and fall of Mafia associate Henry Hill and his friends and family from 1955 to 1980. The film's focus is on the half-Irish Henry Hill (Liotta) and his Jewish spouse Karen (Bracco), who envy the gangster lifestyle but can never fully be part of the Mafia’s inner circle because of their ethnic identities. Dana Polan's compelling study chronicle the production history of the film, starting with Nick Pileggi’s source book, Wiseguy (1985) and its transformation into a script by Pileggi and Scorsese.  He moves on to to consider thematic and formal aspects of the movie: the many moments (aural as well as visual) that make filmic form palpable and celebrate cinematicness; Goodfellas' ethnographic concern with communities whose members build up special worlds for themselves; and connected to that, the complicated relation between artists and other kinds of world-builders (such as the Mafia men Scorsese depicts through his own art of cinema); the complicated interweave of dynamic form and morally dubious content; a narrative that has the ambition of historical sweep combined with a complicated, frequently nonchronological time-frame; the contrast between everyday victims and the special community (of criminals); the role of outsiders who want in (like Henry and eventually Karen – who at first wants to stay out but is seduced eventually into the lifestyle), and the function of voice-over narration.  Polan concludes with a consideration of the film’s reception and its lasting impact on later popular culture such as the TV series The Sopranos.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53489656004881,"sku":"NGR9781805750505","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"scenes-of-instruction-book-dana-polan-9780520249639","title":"Scenes of Instruction","description":"This engaging book chronicles the first classes on the art and industry of cinema and the colorful pioneers who taught, wrote, and advocated on behalf of the new art form. Using extensive archival research, Dana Polan looks at, for example, Columbia University's early classes on Photoplay Composition; lectures at the New School for Social Research by famed movie historian Terry Ramsaye; the film industry's sponsorship of a business course on film at Harvard; and attempts by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to create programs of professionalized education at the University of Southern California, Stanford, and elsewhere. Polan examines a wide range of thinkers who engaged with the new art of film, from Marxist Harry Alan Potamkin to sociologist Frederic Thrasher to Great Books advocates Mortimer Adler and Mark Van Doren.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53521201266961,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53521201463569,"sku":"NLS9780520249639","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780520249639.jpg?v=1778451196"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-dana-polan.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}