The notion of landscape is a complex one, but it has been central to the art and artistry of the cinema. After all, what is the French New Wave without Paris? What are the films of Sidney Lumet, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Spike Lee without New York? Cinema and Landscape frames contemporary film landscapes across the world, in an exploration of screen aesthetics and national ideology, film form and cultural geography, cinematic representation and the human environment. Written by well-known cinema scholars, this volume both extends the existing field of film studies and stakes claims to overlapping, contested territories in the humanities and social sciences.
Table of Content
Chapter 1: Introduction – Cinema and Landscape – Graeme Harper, Bangor University and Jonathan Rayner, University of Sheffield
PART I: The Invention of the Cinematic Landscape
Chapter 2: Landscape and the Fantasy of Moving Pictures: Early Cinema’s Phantom Rides – Tom Gunning, University of Chicago
PART II: Mapping Cinematic Landscapes
Chapter 3: ‘One Foot in the Air?’ Landscape in the Soviet and Russian Road Movie – Emma Widdis, University of Cambridge
Chapter 4: Landscape of the Mind: The Indifferent Earth in Werner Herzog’s Films – Brad Prager, University of Missouri
Chapter 5: Visions of Italy: The Sublime, the Postmodern and the Apocalyptic – William Hope, Salford University
Chapter 6: Landscape in Spanish Cinema – Marvin D’Lugo, Clark University
Chapter 7: Landscape and Irish Cinema – Martin Mc Loone, University of Ulster
Chapter 8: The Ownership of Woods and Water: Landscapes in British Cinema 1930–1960 – Sue Harper, University of Portsmouth
Chapter 9: Filming the (Post-)Colonial Landscape: Claire Denis’ Chocolat (1988) and Beau travail (1998) – Susan Hayward, University of Exeter
Chapter 10: Landscaping the Revolution: The Political and Social Geography of Cuba Reflected in its Cinema – Bob Britton, University of Sheffield
Chapter 11: Landscapes of Meaning in Cinema: Two Indian Examples – Wimal Dissanayake, University of Hawaii
Chapter 12: The Geography of Cinema – Zimbabwe – Martin Mhando, Murdoch University
Chapter 13: Crises, Economy and Landscape: The Modern Film Face of New China – Kate Taylor, Bangor University
Chapter 14: Japanese Cinema and Landscape – Paul Spicer, University of Portsmouth
Chapter 15: A Version of Beauty and Terror: Australian Cinematic Landscapes – Graeme Harper, Bangor University
Chapter 16: Battlefields of Vision: New Zealand Filmscapes – Jonathan Rayner, University of Sheffield
Chapter 17: The Landscapes of Canada’s Features: Articulating Nation and Nature – Jim Leach, Brock University
Chapter 18: Science Fiction/Fantasy Films, Fairy Tales and Control: Landscape Stereotypes on a Wilderness to Ultra-urban Continuum – Christina Kennedy, Tiánna and Mélisa Kennedy, Northern Arizona University
About the author
Graeme Harper is co-editor of the Journal of European Popular Culture (JEPC). His latest work is the novel Releasing the Animals (Parlor, 2023).
Contact: The Honors College, Oakland University, Rochester, MI 48309, USA.