From Antz to Titanic by Martin Barker
Everybody analyses films. Ordinary viewers, chatting on the way home afterwards. Reviewers, telling us just enough to tempt or put off. Critics, 'situating' films for us. Moralists, hunting for the (harmful) message. So what exactly is it that film academics do that's different?Martin Barker and Thomas Austin provide a jargon-free, accessible and student-friendly introduction to film analysis. They begin with a discussion about audience and a detailed case-study on four conflicting analyses of Capra's It's A Wonderful Life. The authors examine a range of popular Hollywood films in a variety of genres, including Titanic, Deep Impact, Sleepless in Seattle, The Lion King, Starship Troopers and The Usual Suspects, and provide vivid demonstrations of what can and can't be achieved with close textual analysis. The book ends by proposing a list of measures for assessing the adequacy of film analyses: measures intended to lay the basis of a way of doing film analysis which goes beyond theoretically predetermined and often obscurantist assertions.Explicitly rejecting much of the theoretical baggage that dogs contemporary film analysis, Barker and Austin strip the subject down to its bare essentials. The result is a provocative and timely re-examination of many of the basic tenets in film theory and analysis.
'It is the author's willingness to critically engage with so much of what has come to dominate academic film studies today, as well as the clarity of his writing and the fertility of his thought, that makes From Antz to Titanic a beneficial if sobering read' -- Steven Jay Schneider, Harvard University
'I would recommend this book to film students for its evocative and sometimes insightful reading of seven popular Hollywood films, together with its critique of several existing film theories' -- film-philosophycom
'I would recommend this book to film students for its evocative and sometimes insightful reading of seven popular Hollywood films, together with its critique of several existing film theories' -- film-philosophycom
Martin Barker was a British scholar of media and cultural studies. He was Emeritus Professor at Aberystwyth University. Over the course of his career he has written or co-edited fifteen books, including A 'Toxic Genre' and From Antz to Titanic. He was known for being one of the pioneers behind the concept of cultural racism, which he termed 'new racism'. Thomas Austin lectures in Media and Film Studies at University of Sussex. He is the author of Watching the World (MUP, 2007), Hollywood: Hype and Audiences (MUP, 2002) and From Antz to Titanic (Pluto Press, 2000).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780745315799 |
| ISBN 10 | 0745315798 |
| Title | From Antz to Titanic |
| Author | Martin Barker |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Pluto Press |
| Year published | 2000-06-20 |
| Number of pages | 232 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |