Series: AFI Film Readers

Authorship and Film explores the persistent theme of authorship within the field of cinema studies. This volume of new work revitalises the question of authorship by connecting it to larger issues of identity — in film, in the marketplace, in society, and in culture. Essays within the book range from the auteur theory and Casablanca to Oscar Micheaux, from the...

The biographical film or biopic is a staple of film production in all major film industries and yet, within film studies, its generic, aesthetic, and cultural significance has remained underexplored. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture fills this gap, conceptualising the biopic with a particular eye toward the "life" of the genre internationally. New theoretical approaches combine with specially commissioned...

Endangering Science Fiction Film explores the ways in which science fiction film is a dangerous and endangering genre. The collection argues that science fiction's cinematic power rests in its ability to imagine ‘Other’ worlds that challenge and disturb the lived conditions of the ‘real’ world, as it is presently known to us. From classic films such as 2001: A Space...

SCMS Award Winner Best Edited Collection The standard analytical category of "national cinema" has increasingly been called into question by the category of the "transnational." This anthology examines the premises and consequences of the coexistence of these two categories and the parameters of historiographical approaches that cross the borders of nation-states. The three sections of World Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives cover...