Book Reviews – October 2010
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Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies Issue 18 October 2010 Book Reviews – October 2010 Table of Contents "May Contain Graphic Material": Comic Books, Graphic Novels, and Film By M. Keith Booker A review by David Simmons................................................................... 5 Investigating Firefly and Serenity By Rhonda Wilcox and Tanya Cochran (eds.) Special Issue on Firefly and Serenity By Rhonda Wilcox and Tanya Cochran (eds.), Slayage 25, winter 2008 [7.1] A review by Ronald Helfrich ................................................................... 8 Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film By Adilifu Nama Mixed Race Hollywood Edited by Mary Beltrán and Camilla Fojas A Review by Augusto Ciuffo de Oliveira ................................................. 11 Inherent Vice: Bootleg Histories of Videotape and Copyright By Lucas Hilderbrand From Betamax to Blockbuster: Video Stores and the Invention of Movies on Video By Joshua Greenberg Video and DVD Industries By Paul McDonald A review by Daniel Herbert .................................................................. 17 Stanley Cavell's American Dream: Shakespeare, Philosophy, and Hollywood Movies By Lawrence F. Rhu A Review by Áine Kelly ........................................................................ 25 1 Book Reviews Scorsese By Roger Ebert A Review by John Berra ....................................................................... 28 Contemporary British Cinema: From Heritage to Horror By James Leggott Roman Polanski By James Morrison A Review by Paul Newland ................................................................... 31 Cities In Transition: The Moving Image and the Modern Metropolis Edited by Andrew Webber and Emma Wilson Cinematic Countrysides (Inside Popular Film) Edited by Robert Fish Dance Hall and Picture Palace: Sydney's Romance with Modernity By Jill Julius Matthews A Review by Peter C. Pugsley ............................................................... 36 Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World By S. Brent Plate Crowd Scenes: Movies and Mass Politics By Michael Tratner Male Jealousy: Literature and Film By Louis Lo A Review by Douglas C. MacLeod, Jr. .................................................... 42 Italian Neorealism: Rebuilding the Cinematic City By Mark Shiel A review by Tom Whittaker .................................................................. 49 2 Issue 18, October 2010 Book Reviews Independent Cinema (includes DVD of Paul Cronin's Film as a Subversive Art: Amos Vogel and Cinema 16) By D.K. Holm Declarations of Independence: American Cinema and the Partiality of Independent Production By John Berra A Review by Carl Wilson ...................................................................... 53 Seventies British Cinema Edited by Robert Shail A review by Lawrence Webb ................................................................ 61 Photography and Cinema (Exposures) By David Campany Still Moving: Between Cinema and Photography Edited by Karen Beckenham and Jean Ma A review by Tom Slevin ....................................................................... 65 Russians in Hollywood, Hollywood's Russians: Biography of an Image By Harlow Robinson How the Soviet Man was Unmade: Cultural Fantasy and Male Subjectivity under Stalin By Lilya Kaganovsky Television, Power, and the Public in Russia By Ellen Mickiewicz A review by Brian Faucette .................................................................. 71 A Companion to Spanish Cinema By Bernard P.E. Bentley Gender and Spanish Cinema Edited by Steven Marsh and Parvati Nair A Review by Abigail Keating ................................................................. 78 Issue 18, October 2010 3 Book Reviews The Moguls and the Dictators: Hollywood and the Coming of World War II By David Welky The Hidden Art of Hollywood: In Defense of the Studio Era Film By John Fawell A Review by Hannah Durkin ................................................................. 84 Neil Jordan By Maria Pramaggiore The Cinema of Neil Jordan: Dark Carnival By Carole Zucker A Review by Steve Masters .................................................................. 89 Palestinian Cinema: Landscape, Trauma, and Memory By Nurith Gertz and George Khleifi Review by Omar Kholeif ...................................................................... 94 The Cinema of Jan Švankmajer: Dark Alchemy (Directors' Cuts) Edited by Peter Hames Hungarian Cinema: From Coffee House to Multiplex By John Cunningham A Review by Jonathan Owen ................................................................ 97 Movie Greats: A Critical Study of Classic Cinema By Philip Gillett Inventing Film Studies Edited by Lee Grieveson and Haidee Wasson A Review by Steven Rybin ................................................................. 103 4 Issue 18, October 2010 Book Reviews "May Contain Graphic Material": Comic Books, Graphic Novels, and Film By M. Keith Booker Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2007. ISBN 978-0275993863. Xl + 226 pp. £25.95 (hbk). A review by David Simmons, University of Northampton, UK Following a brief lull in output, caused by the critical and commercial failure of Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin (1997), the last ten years have seen the comic book movie rise to ever greater prominence on the cinematic landscape. The last few years alone have witnessed films based on both famous comic book characters (Spiderman, Superman, Batman) and texts that are less well known (Hellboy, Sin City, 300). While often wildly divergent in quality and tone, one thing these adaptations seem to share in common with each other is their commercial appeal, and with 2008 seeing the release of the first major film; Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008), to be self-financed by the comics company Marvel, now seems like an appropriate time to explore the increasingly interdependent relationship between sequential art and cinema. Booker's "May Contain Graphic Material": Comic Books, Graphic Novels, and Film attempts to make sense of the increasingly symbiotic relationship between the comic book or graphic novel and filmic forms, charting the more significant developments in the field. As such Booker starts his introduction by reminding us of Will Eisner's statement that film "is an extension of comics" (ix), a sure signal perhaps that the author intends to reassess more culturally conservative estimations of the comic book as a poor source for cinematic adaptation. Instead, the book offers us a more radical interpretation, suggesting that the two forms have, and continue to be, mutually beneficial for one another, with comic books assimilating the narrative intricacies of film and film borrowing many of the visual techniques of comics. The lengthy introduction proceeds to detail the history of comic book material on screen (what Booker terms 'graphic cinema'), from the popular 1930's and '40's serials through notable successes such as Superman: The Movie(Richard Donner, 1978) and notorious failures such as Popeye (Robert Altman, 1980). This early part of the book establishes Booker's knowledge of the subject matter, and his clear understanding of the contributory factors behind the rise of graphic cinema. Hypothesising that progress in this most symbiotic of forms has been largely determined by developments in another; digital technology, the author notes how advances in the field of CGI since the 1990s have seen a marked Issue 18, October 2010 5 Book Reviews increase in successful adaptations as directors have gained an ever greater ability to ape the range and scope of the most visually complex comic material. Booker continues his comprehensive survey of graphic cinema over the main body of the text, dividing "May Contain Graphic Material" into fifteen chapters, each of which examines a different example of the form that the author deems to be significant in some manner. The main part of "May Contain Graphic Material" begins with chapters on arguably the two highest profile examples of graphic cinema; the Superman and Batman franchises. Seemingly aimed more at the novice fan than the expert, these chapters have a tendency to recount the plot and production details of the aforementioned films while suggesting something of the context and cultural impact of the franchises as a whole (television series, comics and computer games are all mentioned). Though Booker's extended comparisons of both the original Superman and Batman (Tim Burton, 1989) films with their most contemporary iterations, Superman Returns (Bryan Singer, 2006) and Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2007), are particularly interesting, one feels that in these chapters Booker struggles to add anything significant to accepted knowledge on either set of films. Indeed, although the material provided would undoubtedly prove illuminating for the uninitiated reader, it is perhaps testament to the success of both of these franchises that any individual with either a passing interest in film or comics will be more than likely to have come across a great deal of the information before. While the book duly examines the better known superhero based graphic cinema franchises such as Superman, Batman and Spiderman it is perhaps at its most appealing when exploring lesser known examples of graphic cinema. Booker's examination of films based on 'underground' comics such as The Crow (Alex Proyas, 1994), the Blade trilogy, and Hellboy (Guillermo del Toro, 2004) raises many interesting points about these films' contributions to