European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood (Film Culture in Transition) - Hardcover

Elsaesser, Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9053566023 ISBN 13: 9789053566022

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press, 2014

Synopsis

In the face of renewed competition from Hollywood since the early 1980s and the challenges posed to Europe's national cinemas by the fall of the Wall in 1989, independent filmmaking in Europe has begun to re-invent itself. European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood re-assesses the different debates and presents a broader framework for understanding the forces at work since the 1960s. These include the interface of -world cinema and the rise of Asian cinemas, the importance of the international film festival circuit, the role of television, as well as the changing aesthetics of auteur cinema. New audiences have different allegiances, and new technologies enable networks to reshape identities, but European cinema still has an important function in setting critical and creative agendas, even as its economic and institutional bases are in transition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Has European cinema, in the age of globalisation, lost contact not only with the world at large, but with its own audiences? Between the thriving festival circuit and the obligatory late-night television slot, is there still a public or a public sphere for European films? Can the cinema be the appropriate medium for a multicultural Europe and its migrating multitudes? Is there a division of representational labour, with Hollywood providing stars and spectacle, the Asian countries exotic colour and choreographed action, and Europe a sense of history, place and memory? This collection of essays (1968-2005) by an acclaimed film scholar examines the crisis of contemporary European cinema since the 1990s, faced by the Hollywood giant on the one hand, and the collapsing national cinema industries on the other. Elsaesser examines the conflicting terminologies that have dominated the debate, including the notion of the nation and the auteur cinema, and the idea of the artist as creator of a unique vision, while also looking at the ideological agendas, from the 'avantgarde cinema', to the high/low culture debate, and the fate of popular European cinema.

A reminder that Europeans have frequently had a shaping influence on the American cinema, placing key issues in the Europe-Hollywood debate in a historical perspective. A hundred years after the 'invention' of cinema, the field of film and media studies has become an essential part of the Humanities curriculum. Yet, surprisingly enough, there is less consensus than ever about how the cinema, television and the digital media are best understood in the historical context of cultural modernity, of technological change and the global reach of electronic networks. "Film Culture in Transition" is committed to a plurality of approaches and to initiating informed debate on the new technologies, their histories and the new forms of creativity and cultural memory, which are transforming contemporary experience. Our books, while putting the emphasis on current work in film theory and media history, on inter-disciplinary methods and transnational issues, also feature innovative studies on film authors and the vital issues in the politics of the image, especially in the force-field of Europe, Hollywood and World Cinema. Thomas Elsaesser is general editor of the series.

About the Author:

"http://www.thomas-elsaesser.com/" target="_blank">Thomas Elsaesser is Professor of Film and Television Studies in the Department of Art and Culture at the University of Amsterdam.

About this edition

• Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 9053566023
• ISBN 13: 9789053566022
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 568