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Newly released paperbacks from Berghahn:
The Ju/’Hoan San of Nyae Nyae and Namibian Independence: Development, Democracy, and Indigenous Voices in Southern Africa, Megan Biesele and Robert K. Hitchcock
Jerzy Skolimowski: The Cinema of a Nonconformist, Ewa Mazierska
Avant-Garde to New Wave Czechoslovak Cinema, Surrealism and the Sixties, Jonathan L. Owen
Anthropologies of Education: A Global Guide to Ethnographic Studies of Learning and Schooling, edited by Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt
Michael Haneke’s latest film, Amour, premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and went on win the Palme d’Or, making it his second win of the award in four years (The White Ribbon won in 2009). At the 25th European Film Awards, Amour was nominated in six categories and won in four, including Best Film and Best Director. The acclaim for the film further confirms Haneke’s position as one of the most significant living filmmakers.
Catherine Wheatley’s detailed study of his work, Michael Haneke’s Cinema, was published by Berghahn in 2009. Screen magazine described it as “a bold, lucid, fiercely intelligent book, a vital addition to the study of contemporary cinema by one of the UK’s brightest young film critics.” It was also Sight & Sound Magazine Book of the Month, September 2009.
“Wheatley provides excellent close readings of a number of films and crucial film scenes. The book as a whole could be used in conjunction with a film course on Haneke, or its various chapters would lend themselves to discussions in graduate and even undergraduate courses on contemporary European film…The writing style is clear and while it pursues a critical theoretical analysis, it remains free from jargon. “ · Monatshefte
Here’s the trailer for Amour, which can be seen in the United States starting December 21st.
What inspired the project?
Ursula Tidd: As far as I was concerned, I was keen to show the immense relevance of Beauvoir’s thought to film studies and hence, to take her work more deeply into the area of film studies. I have noticed that Beauvoir’s work is often implied in discussions in film studies about ‘the male gaze’ and on the topic of gender relations more broadly, but not always made explicit in what it contributes to the debates.
Jean-Pierre Boulé: A desire to use The Second Sex to show that Beauvoir still has a lot to say about human relationships.
How did you hope it might influence the field?
J-PB: For people to go back to or discover Beauvoir and realise that she has a place in film studies.
UT: I hope that this volume will inspire more people to look at film through Beauvoirean eyes, so to speak! And to engage more closely with her phenomenologically-based philosophy on gender and ageing.
Which aspect of co-editing did you find most difficult?
J-PB: Not difficult as such, but bearing in mind a student readership, making the volume accessible to them. And choosing the front cover photograph.
UT: Yes, it’s important to keep in mind the future readership of a volume like this – although one can’t please everyone…
Would the films discussed be the kind of films Simone de Beauvoir would be interested in?
UT: For sure! Beauvoir was highly eclectic in her cultural interests and an avid film-goer, at least for most of her life. She enjoyed art house as well as Hollywood cinema so I think that all the films discussed would have engaged her.
J-PB: Absolutely! I like to think she would have liked the various genres under study, as she herself wrote in a variety of genres. I think she would have loved Revolutionary Road, set in 1955, with its story of oppression and liberation.
______________________________
Jean-Pierre Boulé is Professor of Contemporary French Studies at Nottingham Trent University.
Ursula Tidd is Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Manchester.
Existentialism and Contemporary Cinema: A Beauvoirian Perspective was published by Berghahn Books in September 2012. A companion volume, Existentialism and Contemporary Cinema: A Sartrean Perspective, edited by Jean-Pierre Boulé and Enda McCaffrey, is also available from Berghahn Books.
Newly released paperbacks from Berghahn:
New in print from Berghahn:
After The History of Sexuality: German Genealogies with and beyond Foucault, edited by Scott Spector, Helmut Puff, and Dagmar Herzog
Cinema of Choice: Optional Thinking and Narrative Movies, by Nitzan Ben Shaul
Hitler’s Volksgemeinschaft and the Dynamics of Racial Exclusion: Violence against Jews in Provincial Germany, 1919-1939, by Michael Wildt, translated from German by Bernard Heise
Sharing the Sacra: The Politics and Pragmatics of Intercommunal Relations around Holy Places, edited by Glenn Bowman
Nitzan Ben-Shaul is the author of Cinema of Choice: Optional Thinking and Narrative Movies, which will be released by Berghahn this month. His book explores films such as Sliding Doors, Run Lola Run, Inglourious Basterds, and Rashomon that present alternate narrative paths and uses these films to examine how standard linear films close down thinking processes, while arguing that optional thinking in film can be stimulating and rewarding. Here, he answers questions about his research and topic.
1. What drew you to the topic of cinema that proposes alternate narrative paths?
I was initially drawn to these movies when working on my book on interactive cinema (Hypernarrative Interactive Cinema: Problems and Solutions, Rodopi, 2008). Being concerned there with drama-guided interaction I found movies like Run Lola Run, Sliding Doors, and Rashomon to be excellent models for devising engaging interactive movies given their bifurcating narrative paths. I also produced a feature length interactive movie entitled Turbulence (2009) based on my research into interactive movies. I then asked myself what is the added value of these films and realized that they encourage optional thinking, that is, they get you thinking about options in life, a process that most movies actually derail by their encouraging closed-mindedness in their one-track narrative trajectory leading in an apparent strict causality to a relieving closure. Continue reading “Interview with the Author- Nitzan Ben-Shaul, Author of Cinema of Choice: Optional Thinking and Narrative Movies”
As the Berghahn Books blog wraps up it’s third week of existence, we’re excited to announce our first contest. To be entered to win a copy of Michael Haneke’s Cinema: The Ethics of the Image by Catherine Wheatley, follow Berghahn Books on Facebook by 5 p.m. EST Monday. We’ll select a winner at random from our new followers.
The first English-language analysis of Michael Haneke’s work, Michael Haneke’s Cinema offers a critical analysis of the Austrian director’s first eight feature films. Drawing on the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Stanley Cavell, Catherine Wheatley, introduces a new way of marrying film and moral philosophy, which explicitly examines the ethics of the film viewing experience. This critically acclaimed work was shortlisted for the Best Moving Image Book by the And/Or Book Awards and the 2009 Willy Haas and was the Sight and Sound Magazine Book of the Month in September, 2009.