Book Reviews – February 2011
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Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies Issue 19 February 2011 Book Reviews – February 2011 Table of Contents Carmen on Film: A Cultural History By Phil Powrie, Bruce Babington, Ann Davies and Chris Perriam 100 Hundred Years of Spanish Cinema By Tatjana Pavlović, Inmaculada Alvarez, Rosana Blanco-Cano, Anitra Grisales, Alejandra Osorio and Alejandra Sánchez Cinema and Fascism: Italian Film and Society, 1922-1943 By Steven Ricci A Review by Noelia Saenz ...................................................................... 5 Screen Education: From Film Appreciation to Media Studies By Terry Bolas Beginning Film Studies By Andrew Dix A Review by Juli Pitzer ........................................................................ 15 Isuma: Inuit Video Art By Michael Robert Evans Outside Looking In: Viewing First Nations Peoples in Canadian Dramatic Television Series By Mary Jane Miller A Review by Heather Macdougall .......................................................... 21 The French New Wave: Critical Landmarks Edited by Peter Graham and Ginette Vincendeau Stardom in Postwar France Edited by John Gaffney and Diana Holmes A Review by John Berra ....................................................................... 27 1 Book Reviews Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era Edited by Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey P. Jones, and Ethan Thompson A Review by Evan Elkins ...................................................................... 33 Gilles Deleuze: Cinema and Philosophy By Paola Marrati. Translated by Alisa Hartz Cinematic Mythmaking: Philosophy in Film By Irving Singer A Review by Alexander Thimons ........................................................... 38 Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema Edited by Warren Buckland A Review by Chris Pallant .................................................................... 45 Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story By Glyn Davis A Review by Mike Miley ....................................................................... 49 The Hitchcock Annual Anthology: Selected Essays from Volumes 10-15 Edited by Sidney Gottlieb and Richard Allen A Review by Christina M. Parker ........................................................... 54 Film and Memory in East Germany By Anke Pinkert Nation and Identity in the New German Cinema By Inga Scharf A Review by David Embree .................................................................. 59 Dismantling the Dream Factory: Gender, German Cinema and the Postwar Quest for a New Film Language By Hester Baer A Review by Paul Cooke ...................................................................... 65 2 Issue 19, February 2011 Book Reviews Understanding Indian Cinema: Culture, Cognition and Cinematic Imagination By Patrick Colm Hogan Mourning The Nation: Indian Cinema in the Wake of Partition By Bhaskar Sarkar A Review by Scott Jordan Harris ........................................................... 69 Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Movies By Dave Saunders A Review by Joseph Arton.................................................................... 75 Jean-Pierre Jeunet By Elizabeth Ezra The Tactile Eye: Touch and the Cinematic Experience By Jennifer M. Barker A Review by Alison Frank..................................................................... 79 Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel By Nick Dawson The Films of Hal Ashby By Christopher Beach A Review by Aaron Hunter ................................................................... 86 Steven Spielberg and Philosophy: We're Gonna Need a Bigger Book Edited by Dean A. Kowalski Scenes of Love and Murder: Renoir, Film and Philosophy By Colin Davis A Review by Chelsea Wessels ............................................................... 93 Issue 19, February 2011 3 Book Reviews The Cinema of Naruse Mikio: Women and Japanese Modernity By Catherine Russell Forest of Pressure: Ogawa Shinsuke and Postwar Japanese Documentary By Abé Mark Nornes A Review by Stephen Potter ................................................................. 97 Anatomy of Film. Sixth Edition By Bernard F. Dick A Review by Monika Raesch ............................................................... 105 Playing with Memories: Essays on Guy Maddin Edited by David Church The Young, the Restless, and the Dead: Interviews with Canadian Filmmakers, Volume 1 Edited by George Melnyk A Review by Rachel Walls .................................................................. 112 TV China Edited by Ying Zhu and Chris Berry Transnational Television in Europe: Reconfiguring Global Communications Networks By Jean K. Chalaby A Review by Bärbel Göbel .................................................................. 121 4 Issue 19, February 2011 Book Reviews Carmen on Film: A Cultural History By Phil Powrie, Bruce Babington, Ann Davies and Chris Perriam Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0- 253-21907-7. 31 illustrations, vii + 303 pp. $24.95 (pbk). 100 Hundred Years of Spanish Cinema By Tatjana Pavlović, Inmaculada Alvarez, Rosana Blanco- Cano, Anitra Grisales, Alejandra Osorio and Alejandra Sánchez Chichester, West Sussex, Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. ISBN: 978-1-4051-8419-9. 20 illustrations, xi + 277 pp. £19.99/ $39.95 (pbk). Cinema and Fascism: Italian Film and Society, 1922- 1943 By Steven Ricci Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-520-25356-8. 30 illustrations, xi + 233 pp. £16.95/ $24.95 (pbk). A Review by Noelia Saenz, University of Southern California, USA The idea of national cinema seems somewhat outdated when you think of globalization and the transnational nature that characterizes the production, distribution and reception of the contemporary filmic landscape in any given nation. However, in spite of the move towards thinking about cinema as a transnational commodity, there is still an interest and recognition in preserving the idea of national cinemas. National cinemas, as known today, largely developed as localized attempts to compete against the foreign encroachment of Hollywood, although many countries had vibrant film industries since the nascent days of cinema. The attempt to capture the local market by portraying local settings and customs, however, served a dual function of portraying national interests to international audiences. How other nations and international audiences viewed national cinemas was just as important as what films were chosen to represent the nation at film festivals, suggesting a strong link Issue 19, February 2011 5 Book Reviews between national cinemas and conceptions of national identity as they are imagined both at home and abroad. All of the books discussed in this review deal with questions of national identity and cinema's role in reflecting and mediating the nation during different historical periods and national contexts, and are part of a growing body of work that expands on national cinemas to include the transnational. Current scholarship on national cinemas reminds us that we must not forget the national in the rush to embrace the transnational. National identity, as imagined through national cinema, is the product of a negotiation between how the nation imagines itself and how other nations imagine it, and often this negotiation is a product of shifting and sometimes unequal power relations both within the nation and outside of its borders. The first book discussed, Carmen on Film: A Cultural History, examines the history of filmic representations of the Carmen story from its inception in the French imaginary during the nineteenth century to the present. This book, a collaborative product between four different scholars, focuses on three national contexts, France, Spain and the United States, whose unique cultural history shapes the story of Carmen on film. These are not the only cinemas that have adapted the Carmen myth, for, as the authors point out, "there have been some 80 film adaptations since 1906" (ix). However, these three nations comprise the majority of the adaptations. Grounding their work within the fields of cultural studies, film studies and nation studies, the authors of this book use the body of filmic representations of Carmen to examine the cross-cultural relationship between Otherness and the nation. According to the authors, "the "nation" imagines itself and its specificities through Otherness, and it is only by grounding that Otherness in the imagined Sameness of national cinemas that we can understand its function" (xii). By exploring the evolution of the Carmen story on film and through an analysis of how different national contexts and different star personas shape the figure of Carmen, this book ultimately helps determine the cultural specificity of each adaptation, and how that specificity both rewrites the Carmen myth and remains in dialogue with the theme of containment of the unruly and Othered central protagonist and excessive female desire from the original story. 6 Issue 19, February 2011 Book Reviews According to the authors, the Carmen narrative was a product of the French Romantic movement of the nineteenth century and its Orientalizing gaze towards Spain, perceived as a country tainted by its proximity to Africa and therefore more exotic and primitive than northern Europe. As the authors point out in their chapter, 'Theorizing Spain', "the Carmen narrative conflates Spanishness with the culture of Andalusia, the most southern region of Spain, close to Africa and the Near East and still bearing