Author: David Lloyd File Type: pdf Explores Samuel Becketts relation to painting and the visual imagination that informs his theatrical work Beckett was deeply engaged with the visual arts and individual painters, including Jack B. Yeats, Bram van Velde, and Avigdor Arikha. In this monograph, David Lloyd explores what Beckett saw in their paintings. He explains what visual resources Beckett found in these particular painters rather than in the surrealism of Masson or the abstraction of Kandinsky or Mondrian. The analysis of Becketts visual imagination is based on his criticism and on close analysis of the paintings he viewed. Lloyd shows how Becketts fascination with these painters illuminates the painterly qualities of his theatre and the philosophical, political and aesthetic implications of Becketts highly visual dramatic work. Key Features Discusses Becketts relationship with three painters crucial to his life-long dialogue with the visual arts The first book to examine the paintings that Beckett would have known and on which he based his critical remarks Accounts for the increasing visuality of Becketts theatre in relation to his evolving appreciation of painting and the formal questions posed by that medium Explores Becketts anticipation of European phenomenology and psychoanalysis in relation to Heidegger and Lacan

Author: Jack Shadoian File Type: pdf The second edition of this classic study provides a reintroduction to some of the major films and theoretical considerations of film noir and gangster films in twentieth-century America. Ranging from Little Caesar (1930) to Things to Do in Denver When Youre Dead (1995), Shadoian guides the reader through twenty classic movies of the genre.His approach is to use brief introductions to introduce distinct eras of the gangster films in each of seven chapters. Moving chronologically, he offers plot synopses and close readings of such definitive examples as Bonnie and Clyde, The Public Enemy, D.O.A. and The Godfather, each accompanied by photographs and authors critiques. Compenendia of facts on each film are also provided. This updated version looks a newer films as well as how the genre has moved into the new century. Appendices look at the movie Criss Cross as an epitome of the genre while others offer different lists of gangster films, including the authors top fourteen alltime, fifty post-Godfather films worth seeing, and fifty vintage films.ReviewPraise for the previous edition Dreams and Dead Ends is quite a remarkable book. One would expect a formal, academic theorist to discuss the great and near-great American gangster movies in terms much duller than the films themselves. Not here, for Mr. Shadoians essays are aggressive, readable, and often profound. He has a fine, firm grasp of photography, composition, editing, direction, acting, and screenwriting. His cultural and sociological observations are brilliant. He traces the development of gangster films from Little Caesar to Point Blank with sure-footed finesse, and ends up by admitting that, as the latest cycle has only just begun, predictions regarding its course would be presumptuous and foolish. Recommended.--Media Review DigestShadoians expansive coverage of the sociopolitical and cultural background of the films and their interrelated styles and themes is extremely cogent. The chosen films are familiar to anyone interested in this popular genre, but the films have seldom been written about as incisively. Shadoian communicates a thorough understanding of film noir, that often quixotically misdefined entity so crucial to movies of the 1940s and 1950s, and for quality alone, his book is one of the best (if not the best) ever written on the subject. --Library JournalA provocative and probing analysis of the gangster-crime film as a visual literature with unique perceptions of American social and urban problems. Dreams and Dead Ends is a seminal work for the structuring of film criticism around genres.... The most analytical, current, and comprehensive work on the genre.--ChoiceThe unusual depth and detail provided in the examination of each film provides rich material for reader thought and reaction. Arrangement of the study is logical and natural with justification provided for the authors selections. The volume is a model of genre study that helps to advance the art of film criticism. Highly recommended.--Cinema BooklistAbout the AuthorJack Shadoian is at University of Massachusetts.

Author: Kirsten Wolf File Type: pdf The Saints in Old Norse and Early Modern Icelandic Poetry is a complimentary volume to The Legends of the Saints in Old NorseIcelandic Prose (UTP 2013). While its predecessor dealt primarily with medieval prose texts about the saints, this volume not only focuses on medieval poems about saints but also on Icelandic devotional poetry created during the early modern period. The handlist organizes saints names, manuscripts, and editions of individual poems with references to approximate dates of the manuscripts, as well as modern Icelandic editions and translations. Each entry concludes with secondary literature about the poem in question. These features combine to make The Saints in Old Norse and Early Modern Icelandic Poetry an invaluable resource for scholars and students in the field.

Author: Paul Elliott File Type: pdf Guattari Reframed presents a timely and urgent rehabilitation of one of the twentieth centurys most engaged and engaging cultural philosophers. Best known as an activist and practising psychiatrist, Guattaris work is increasingly understood as both eerily prescient and vital in the context of contemporary culture. Employing the language of visual culture and concrete examples drawn from it, this book introduces and reassesses the major concepts developed throughout Guattaris writings and his call to transform the deadening homogeneity of contemporary existence into the universe of creative enchantments. Paul Elliott asserts the significance of Guattari as a revolutionary philosopher and cultural theorist, and invites the reader to transform both their understanding of his work and their lives through his ideas.