Search

Begin New Search Topic Media Political Geography United States Content Type Book Publishing Institution Berghahn Books

1. The Witness as Object: Video Testimony in Memorial Museums

Author:
Steffi De Jong
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
In recent years, historical witnessing has emerged as a category of "museum object." Audiovisual recordings of interviews with individuals remembering events of historical importance are now integral to the collections and research activities of museums. They have also become important components in narrative and exhibition design strategies. With a focus on Holocaust museums, this study scrutinizes for the first time the new global phenomenon of the "musealization" of the witness to history, exploring the processes, prerequisites, and consequences of the transformation of video testimonies into exhibits.
Topic:
Mass Media, Media, Holocaust, and Museums
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, Israel, and Global Focus

2. A Foreign Affair: Billy Wilder's American Films

Author:
Gerd Gemünden
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
With six Academy Awards, four entries on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest American movies, and more titles on the National Historic Register of classic films deemed worthy of preservation than any other director, Billy Wilder counts as one of the most accomplished filmmakers ever to work in Hollywood. Yet how American is Billy Wilder, the Jewish émigré from Central Europe? This book underscores this complex issue, unpacking underlying contradictions where previous commentators routinely smoothed them out. Wilder emerges as an artist with roots in sensationalist journalism and the world of entertainment as well as with an awareness of literary culture and the avant-garde, features that lead to productive and often highly original confrontations between high and low.
Topic:
Immigration, Media, Film, and Material Culture
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, California, Germany, and Central Europe

3. Transaction with the World: Ecocriticism and the Environmental Sensibility of New Hollywood

Author:
Adam O'Brien
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
In their bold experimentation and bracing engagement with culture and politics, the “New Hollywood” films of the late 1960s and early 1970s are justly celebrated contributions to American cinematic history. Relatively unexplored, however, has been the profound environmental sensibility that characterized movies such as The Wild Bunch, Chinatown, and Nashville. This brisk and engaging study explores how many hallmarks of New Hollywood filmmaking, such as the increased reliance on location shooting and the rejection of American self-mythologizing, made the era such a vividly “grounded” cinematic moment. Synthesizing a range of narrative, aesthetic, and ecocritical theories, it offers a genuinely fresh perspective on one of the most studied periods in film history.
Topic:
Environment, Mass Media, Culture, and Media
Political Geography:
United States, California, and North America

Refine your search