Dear all,
I am very pleased to announce the publication of
"Generic Attractions: New Essays on Film Genre
Criticism", edited by Maria del Mar Azcona and Celestino Deleyto.
del Mar Azcona, Maria and Celestino Deleyto,
eds, Generic Attractions: New essays on film
genre criticism, Paris: Michel Houdiard, 2010. ISBN-13 978-2356920331
Best regards,
David Roche, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France
Michel Houdiard Éditeur
présente l?ouvrage
Generic attactions : New essays on film genre criticism
From its beginnings in the 1960s and 70s genre
criticism has been one of the most exciting and
fruitful areas of enquiry in Film Studies,
surviving and morphing into the various
tendencies and schools of criticism that have
succeeded one another in the course of the
still short life of the discipline. Generic
Attractions offers a fresh look at the topic
and, through a series of original essays, maps
out the complex panorama of approaches existing
at the beginning of the 21st century. Although
theoretical speculation abounds in many of the
essays, the emphasis overall in this volume is
on practical criticism: traditional genres are
revisited, new genres are described, specific
periods of individual genres are reappraised
and various combinations of generic conventions
are used to look at individual directors and individual movies.
The four parts into which the volume is divided
attempt to suggest the variety of the field and
the multiplicity of perspectives from which it
can be explored. Part 1 focuses on individual
genres, some of them well established within the
genre system, others newcomers to it, advocating
the flexibility and constant fluidity of generic
categories. Part 2 sees genres as historical
phenomena and looks at particular moments in the
history of genres. Part 3 analyses specific
cases of auteurs that have contributed or
continue to contribute in interesting ways to
the individual genres that they have worked
with. Finally, the essays in part 4 examine the
ways in which generic conventions are used by
individual films or groups of films and the
impact they have in our interpretations of the texts.
In its variety and the dialogue that it allows
between various schools of thought, Generic
Attractions reenacts once again the vibrancy and
continued relevance of film genre criticism.
TAble oF CoNTeNTS
Introduction
I. New Genres, New Theories
Genre and Complexity Theory:The Case of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Chantal Cornut-Gentille D?Arcy
Transnational Cinema,Transgeneric Cinema.
Elizabeth Ezra
Film Noir and its Ambiguous Take on Genre.
Audun Engelstad
Silenced bodies:The Arrival of Sound and the
Configuration of the Gangster Film.
Vicente Benet
Through the Generic lens: european Cinema on the Road
Wendy Everett
A Genre to the Rescue of an Ideology: A New Approach to empire Cinema.
Julien Guieu
A Genre is born:The Multi-Protagonist Film in Action.
María del Mar Azcona
Rewind: Desire and the Arabesque of Plot in Romantic Comedies.
Celestino Deleyto
The Fantastic Genre and baroque Style: Common borders and Diverse ends.
Emmanuel Plasseraud
Sit-what? or, S(H)itcom Inc. Contemporary
british sitcoms, hegemony and the breaking of
genre boundaries: The Office and Extras.
David Walton
II. Genres and History
Comic Sense and Melodramatic Sensibility:
Generic Interplay in Classical Hollywood Romantic Comedy.
Manuela Ruiz
Genre and Gender, Culture and Ideology:The
American occupation of Japan and Japanese Melodrama
Jacline Moriceau
Working Girls and Men at Work in Contemporary Romantic Comedies.
Marianne Kac-Vergne
When Woody Met Carrie: Sex and the City?s
Protagonist as 21st Century Schlemiel.
Beatriz Oria
?I?ll be black?: Race and Technophobia in 1980s Action Cinema.
Nicky Falkof
From empire to Raj Revival Films: Hybridity and
Transformation of Genre and Gender in british Cinema.
Elena Oliete
?Re-living the living legend?:The Singer biopic
as Film Musical Redux in the Age of Television.
Anthony Barker
From Scandinavian Detective Films to The Wire:
Social Realism or Subversion in Contemporary Detective/Police Drama.
Janica Tomic
Science Fiction and the Paradox of
Popularity:Tensions between the Screen and the Page.
Sara Martín
The Short-lived Dickens Musical era.
Luc Bouvard
III. Genres And Auteurs Which Formula?
Frank Capra and Generic Hybridity.
Yves Carlet
Cukor?s Women and Film.
Yola LeCaïnec
Is There such a Thing as a Hitchcock Genre?
Dominique Sipière
Woody Allen?s Cinema: Playing with Hollywood Genres, Pastiche and Parody.
Gilles Menegaldo
Quentin Tarantino?s Death Proof (2007):
Subverting Genre through Gender or Vice Versa
David Roche
IV. Genres in Action
Reflexivity in Three Films Noirs: Laura (otto
Preminger, 1944), Double Indemnity (billy
Wilder, 1944), Sunset Boulevard (billy Wilder, 1950).
Christophe Gelly
Death Rattles and Dead Children, the Poetics of
Restraint in Three Fantastic Films of the
Seventies: The Other (1972), Don?t Look Now (1973), Full Circle (1977).
Christophe Chambost
Generic hybridity in The Draughtsman?s Contract: History in Suspense.
Beatriz Hernández Pérez
Film Scholarship and the Artist biopic Frida:
From Suffering Martyr to the Death of the Artist.
Bronwyn Polaschek
Who?s the Animal? Perdita Durango and the
Criminal Subject of Chicano Identity.
Stephanie Benson
Generic Complexity and New Individualism ethics in A Mighty Heart (2007).
Luis Miguel García-Mainar
A look at the Dark Side:The Impact of Film Noir
on Harrison Ford?s Developing Star Persona.
Virginia Luzón
Queer Nightmares
Xavier Daverat
The Continuation and Deviations of the Road Movie?s Generic Journey.
Carmen Induráin
