New Books in Film

Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003) brings two Americans together in Tokyo, each experiencing a personal crisis. In this close look at Coppola’s multi-award-winning film, Suzanne Ferriss’s book, Lost in Translation (British Film Institute, 2023), uses the film’s travel theme as a structuring device to detail the complexities of filming the 27-day shoot without permits in Tokyo, to explore Coppola's allusions to fine art, to examine the subtle color palette, the use of music over words, and the characters' experiences in and around the Park Hyatt Tokyo. Ferriss also evaluates the filmmaker’s distinctive cinematic signature and the elements that make Lost in Translation a cinema classic.Suzanne Ferris is Professor Emerita at Nova Southeastern University. She has published extensively on fashion, film, and cultural studies.Latoya Johnson is an editor, writer, and bibliophile with a master's in Humanities. Her research and writing interests include books and reading in popular culture, the public history of women's fiction, and women in Greco-Roman mythology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

Paul Thomas Anderson’s evolution from a brash, self-anointed “Indiewood” auteur to one of his generation’s most distinctive voices has been one of the most remarkable career trajectories in recent film history. From early efforts to emulate his cinematic heroes to his increasingly singular late films, Anderson has created a body of work that balances the familiar and the strange, history and myth: viewers feel perpetually off balance, unsure of whether to expect a pitch-black joke or a moment of piercing emotional resonance.The Cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson: American Apocrypha (Columbia UP, 2023) provides the most complete account of Anderson’s career to date, encompassing his varied side projects and unproduced material; his personal and professional relationships with directors such as Jonathan Demme, Robert Altman, and Robert Downey Sr.; and his work as a director of music videos for Fiona Apple, Joanna Newsom, and Haim. Ethan Warren explores Anderson’s recurring thematic preoccupations―the fraught dynamics of gender and religious faith, biological and found families, and his native San Fernando Valley―as well as his screenwriting methods and his relationship to his influences. Warren argues that Anderson’s films conjure up an alternate American history that exaggerates and elides verifiable facts in search of a heightened truth marked by a deeper level of emotional hyperrealism. This book is at once an unconventional primer on Anderson’s films and a provocative reframing of what makes his work so essential.Ethan Warren is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and is the writer and director of the film West of Her.Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics (Twitter @15MinFilm). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

By the early 1950s, Jane Russell (1921–2011) should have been forgotten. Her career was launched on what is arguably the most notorious advertising campaign in cinema history, which invited filmgoers to see Howard Hughes's The Outlaw (1943) and to "tussle with Russell." Throughout the 1940s, she was nicknamed the "motionless picture actress" and had only three films in theaters. With such a slow, inauspicious start, most aspiring actresses would have given up or faded away. Instead, Russell carved out a place for herself in Hollywood and became a memorable and enduring star.Christina Rice offers the first biography of the actress and activist perhaps most well-known for her role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Despite the fact that her movie career was stalled for nearly a decade, Russell's filmography is respectable. She worked with some of Hollywood's most talented directors―including Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Nicholas Ray, and Josef von Sternberg―and held her own alongside costars such as Marilyn Monroe, Robert Mitchum, Clark Gable, Vincent Price, and Bob Hope. She also learned how to fight back against Howard Hughes, her boss for more than thirty-five years, and his marketing campaigns that exploited her physical appearance.Beyond the screen, Rice reveals Russell as a complex and confident woman. She explores the star's years as a spokeswoman for Playtex as well as her deep faith and work as a Christian vocalist. Rice also discusses Russell's leadership and patronage of the WAIF foundation, which for many years served as the fundraising arm of the International Social Service (ISS) agency. WAIF raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, successfully lobbied Congress to change laws, and resulted in the adoption of tens of thousands of orphaned children. For Russell, the work she did to help unite families overshadowed any of her onscreen achievements.On the surface, Jane Russell seemed to live a charmed life, but Rice illuminates her darker moments and her personal struggles, including her empowered reactions to the controversies surrounding her films and her feelings about being portrayed as a sex symbol. Mean...Moody...Magnificent!: Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend (UP of Kentucky, 2021) offers a fresh perspective on a star whose legacy endures not simply because she forged a notable film career, but also because she effectively used her celebrity to benefit others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

This abundantly illustrated book is an illuminating exploration of the impact of medieval imagery on three hundred years of visual culture.From the soaring castles of Sleeping Beauty to the bloody battles of Game of Thrones, from Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings to mythical beasts in Dungeons & Dragons, and from Medieval Times to the Renaissance Faire, the Middle Ages have inspired artists, playwrights, filmmakers, gamers, and writers for centuries. Indeed, no other historical era has captured the imaginations of so many creators.The Fantasy of the Middle Ages: An Epic Journey Through Imaginary Medieval Worlds (J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022) aims to uncover the many reasons why the Middle Ages have proven so applicable to a variety of modern moments from the eighteenth through the twenty-first century. These “medieval” worlds are often the perfect ground for exploring contemporary cultural concerns and anxieties, saying much more about the time and place in which they were created than they do about the actual conditions of the medieval period. With over 140 color illustrations, from sources ranging from thirteenth-century illuminated manuscripts to contemporary films and video games, and a preface by Game of Thrones costume designer Michele Clapton, The Fantasy of the Middle Ages will surprise and delight both enthusiasts and scholars.This title is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from June 21 to September 11, 2022.Larisa Grollemond is the assistant curator of manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum. She received her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Pennsylvania and was a contributing editor for Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World (Getty Publications, 2019).Bryan C. Keene (he/él/they/elle) is assistant professor of art history at Riverside City College and a former associate curator of manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum. He specializes in codex cultures of the global Middle Ages and fantasy medievalisms. He holds a Ph.D. from the Courtauld Institute of Art, at the University of London.Evan Zarkadas (MA) is an independent scholar of European and Medieval history and an educator. He received his master’s in history from the University of Maine focusing on Medieval Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, medieval identity, and ethnicity during the late Middle Ages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

In Autonomy: The Social Ontology of Art under Capitalism (Duke University Press, 2019), Nicholas Brown offers a fresh perspective on aesthetic autonomy and its political value, one of the great debates of the twentieth century. The monograph illustrates the viability of the modernist project in the era after postmodernism while offering one illuminating reading after another of contemporary examples in novels, photography, sculpture, popular music, TV, or movies. Brown defends art as a liberatory force in an age dominated by markets. By exploring the nuances of artistic production, Autonomy is a feast of delicious and insightful appraisals of artwork—with surprising turns and twists—within a larger context of the dialectics between art and market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

In this podcast, the host, Lara Momesso, interviews the Taiwanese movie director Asio Liu on his most recent movie project on the Vietnamese refugee camps in Penghu. Many of us are familiar with the inexorable flow of Vietnamese boat people right after the end of the war in Vietnam. Though, very few know that some of the Vietnamese boat people landed in Penghu, in the Taiwan Strait, just off the west coast of Taiwan and they ended up living there until they were resettled. The Penghu refugee camps were destroyed at the beginning of the 2000s. By revealing the process of discovering the refugee camps in Penghu and connecting with the refugees who have been there, Asio discusses personal and collective aspects of a phenomenon that brings together global, regional and local issues and which has become the subject of a 20 year-long project.For those who are interested to know more about this issue, here you can find some links: Asio Liu asio.liu@gmail.com Instagram: The Chiangmei Refugee Archive (CRAA) Facebook: @澎湖難民營三部曲 Penghu Refugee Camps Trilogy at the Taiwan Strait Twitter: @CRAA_Chiangmei Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

Dive into the question of why audiences love Shakespeare’s plays and Game of Thrones so much, despite their depictions of prejudice and violence, and discuss the unique power of tragic art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

In The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (UP of Kansas, 2022), Drs. Nicholas Carnes and Lilly J. Goren ask what lessons does Marvel – a “hulking, hegemonic media franchise” teach the public? What might we learn about ourselves and our understanding of the world from this “cinematic juggernaut?”Popular texts encourage audiences to imagine worlds different from their own. Questioning their current political worlds is at the heart of speculative fiction. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a “cultural leviathan” with numerous interconnected movies, streaming series on Disney+, and an increasingly diverse cast of superheroes. The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe brings together over 25 scholars with diverse specialties and methodologies to analyze how the MCU narrates, reproduces, mirrors, and impacts political and social ideas. Dr. Carnes and Dr. Goren break the book into three main parts focusing on political origin stories, use and abuse of political power and evolving diversity in the bodies of the heroes, villains, and victims. The contributors interrogate how the MCU engages – and affects – political society using language accessible to MCU fans and providing contributions to research in various subfields of political science. They conclude that “Entertaiment media is itself a site where politically relevant messages are sent and received – pop culture is itself an arena of contemporary politics.”Nicholas Carnes is Professor of Public Policy and Sociology at Duke University. His publications include The Cash Ceiling: Why Only the Rich Run for Office—And What We Can Do About It (Princeton University Press, 2018) and White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making (University of Chicago Press, 2013).Lilly J. Goren is a Professor of Political Science and Global Studies at Carroll University and co-host of New Books in Political Science. Her publications include co-editing Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Publishers, 2015) and Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

What role do imaginary games have in story-telling? Why do fiction authors outline the rules of a game that the reader will never watch or play? Combining perspectives from philosophy, literature and game studies, Fictional Games: A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play (Bloomsbury, 2023) provides the first in-depth investigation into the significance of games in fictional worlds. With examples from contemporary cinema and literature, from The Hunger Games to the science fiction of Iain M. Banks, Stefano Gualeni and Riccardo Fassone introduce four key functions that different types of imaginary games have in worldbuilding. First, fictional games can emphasize the dominant values and ideologies of the fictional society they belong to. Second, some games function as critical, utopian tools, inspiring shifts in the thinking and political orientation of the fictional characters. Third, imaginary games, especially those with a magical component, are conducive to the transcendence of a particular form of being, such as the overcoming of human corporeality. And fourth, fictional games can deceptively blur the boundaries between the contingency of play and the irrevocable seriousness of "real life", either camouflaging life as a game or disguising a game as something with more permanent consequences. With illustrations in every chapter, bringing the imaginary games to life, Gualeni and Fassone creatively inspire us to consider fictional games anew: not as moments of playful reprieve in a storyline, but as significant and multi-layered rhetorical devices.Rudolf Inderst is a professor of Game Design with a focus on Digital Game Studies at the IU International University of Applied Science, editor of “Game Studies Watchlist”, a weekly messenger newsletter about Game Culture and curator of @gamestudies at tiktok. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

John W. Bubbles was an actor, singer, comedian, and most importantly, a dancer. Born in 1902, Bubbles was an innovator in the jazz tap style and half of the great vaudeville act, "Buck and Bubbles," with his partner pianist Buck Washington. Brian Harker tells Bubbles' story in Sportin’ Life: John W. Bubbles, An American Classic (Oxford University Press, 2022). Bubbles’ long career, which largely ended after a stroke in 1967, spanned several significant shifts in American popular entertainment. He started entertaining audiences in vaudeville just as films began to dominate the landscape followed by television. Harker tells the story of Bubbles’ tumultuous life and situates his career as a Black dancer within segregated America and an entertainment industry that perpetuated racist stereotypes and exploited its workers—especially those from minoritized communities. Although Bubbles originated the role of Sportin’ Life in George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, he has largely slipped out of American memory. Harker restores Bubbles to his rightful place as an innovative dancer and an important figure in twentieth-century American popular entertainment.Kristen M. Turner is a lecturer in the music and honors departments at North Carolina State University. Her research centers on race and class in American popular entertainment at the turn of the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film