Book Description
Almodvar is Spain's most successful and controversial director, a unique blend of art-house auteur and popular film-maker. His films, with their mix of Hollywood and European styles and of popular melodrama and comedy, have been attracting growing international audiences since the success of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. His most recent films are the critically acclaimed Live Flesh, based on a Ruth Rendell story, and All About My Mother, the runaway winner of the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. A Spanish Labyrinth is a much needed, clear and comprehensive introduction to the films of Almodvar, which investigates cultural and national contexts for his work, issues of gender, sexuality, stars, genre, visual style, music and much more. It is the ideal companion to Almodvar for students of film and Hispanic Studies, as well as those generally interested in film and Spanish culture. AUTHORBIO: MARK ALLINSON lectures in the Department of Hispanic Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London.
Customer Reviews:
good insights.......2003-02-03
Stimulating, illuminating insights into the genius mind of Almodovar. The author paints a respectful, comprehensive picture of one the greatest living filmmakers. While we can never truly know everything about the mysteriously talented director, it sure is fun to sneak a peek and try to figure out some theories.
Pedro Almodovar...A New Title (At Last).......2001-10-30
Finding a new book on Almodovar is always a treat, especially in English, and Mark Allinson's book is a very interesting analysis of all of Almodvar's great work.
A definate must for any Almodovar fan like me.
Brilliant.
Mark Williams ...
A Labyrinth of Information.......2001-09-15
As I have only seen two films by the critically acclaimed and now Oscar winning director, my interest in film production encouraged my reading of Mark Allinson's "A Spanish Labyrinth" which touches on almost every aspect of Almodovar's techniques, and compares these with traditional filmmaking of, say, the Hollywood system.
The "in depth" analysis of each of these techniques, and other notable areas of the book transpire the writers clear passion for cinema, Spain, and the Spanish language. Without this, the book would lack it's captivating edge, and be "just another book about filmmaking."
Little is known of Pedro Almodovar in this country. Recources are limited and "A Spanish Labyrith" is only one of two books on the subject written in English. Whilst Almodovar produces all of his films in Spain, it is only a matter of time before he makes films for a wider audience, directing actors from a script written in English.
To conclude, the book is of great interest to anyone who enjoys watching, analysing or even producing films, or indeed shows any interest in World Cinema, Europe and particularly Spain.
Allow the book to be the basis for your introduction to Almodovar, then you'll know what to look for in his latest film releases.
Product Description
Winner of Britains Silver Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of 1970 David Audley is an unlikely spy. True, he works for Englands Ministry of Defense, but strictly as a back-room man, doing meticulous research on the Middle East. This new assignment, then, comes as something of a surprise: A WWII-era British cargo plane has been discovered at the bottom of a drained lake, complete with the dead pilot and not much else. Why are the Soviets so interested in the empty plane and its pilotinterested enough to attend the much-belated funeral? And why has Audley been tapped to lead the investigation? As Audley chips away at the first question, he cant stop asking the second. Could he possibly have been given the assignment in order to fail, to preserve the secrets at the bottom of the lake? If thats the case, someones made an error. Audleys a scholar by training, temperamentally allergic to loose ends. And the story he unravels is going to make some people very uncomfortable indeed.
Customer Reviews:
Competent plot, pacing; never soars; juvenile/puerile romance.......2007-09-16
Pity amazon doesn't let you do two and a half stars.
Big raps on the cover: "Thriller writing at its most intelligent and subtle," and this being book 21 in the `Crime Masterworks' series of `the greatest crime fiction ever written'. Perhaps in the climate it came out in 1970 it was a refreshing change from constant gunfights and suspense, but I can't say `intelligent' is the first word that comes to mind with this book - nor `subtle'. Competent, perhaps, and we're given insight into the insecurities Audley keeps from his admiring colleagues, but there's still a lot more praise heaped onto the Doctor than warranted by his actions. Granted, Price does take us along to all the interviews rather than just want us to take his word for it that Audley managed to garner important information, but I still resent it when we're just told, for example, that he can see through the subtleties of any document to a mine of information invisible to other mortals.
While the professionalism of setting up a workable plot, creating the intelligence world that Audley moves in, setting scenes and pacing events is undeniable, none of this ever soared for me: it's all good background, but where's the hook? It's not in wit of the dialogue or descriptions. It's not in the gripping narration of events. It's nice, I suppose, to not be insulted, but is that enough?
But let's wait a minute there. There *is* a running insult that takes me from grudging acknowledgment that this able story simply wasn't for me, to open criticism: Faith Steerforth/Jones. Some of this is simply the carping of someone from a different generation who's own prejudices and assumptions are bumping against those of a few decades ago: Price's presentation of Faith is an interesting study in how an established forty year old male is dealing with some of the changing values of the sixties towards women and sex - what he would have seen as enlightened egalitarianism is at times delightfully (or uncomfortably) condescending. However the whole romantic subplot is juvenile and ridiculous. Juvenile and ridiculous doesn't have to be bad - if the author is aware of it and just having some fun along with us - but it's inexcusable when we're gunning for `intelligent and subtle'. OK, Price is trying to write popular fiction, not a thesis, so he's hardly to be censured for wanting to include an attractive modern girl as a love interest. But, really, he needs to do better than a teen fantasy. Just maybe, and it's a pretty big maybe, the step-daughter may have gone to the investigator's house in hopes of finding more out about her dead father. But then we're supposed to swallow that it's perfectly natural, almost unavoidable, that she'll innocently stay the night (also at this point neither is particularly attracted to the other - it's just supposed to be a convenience thing). Riiiight. I've just driven out to a total stranger's house, it's a bit late, nothing else for it - I'd better sleep here. But if this tosh wasn't contrived and silly enough it gets better/worse. Robbers come a night or two later (of course she's staying on to help out with the high level international investigations - no stretching of credulity there as she's handed reams of confidential information and taken along to vital assignations!) and, OK, they are forced to hide out in the secret room ... and it's a bit cold ... and they're a bit afraid ... nothing else for it really: they better have sex. No, not even just share a blanket, and maybe a cuddle - it's straight to intercourse. Oh, and Mills and Boon intercourse. Get the post-coital conversation:
`It can't happen often like that, can it?' she said slowly without looking at him. `It can't be so good?'
`I don't know. Never before for me.'
`Nor for me.'
Give me a break.
Price is welcome to his daydreams of somehow finding himself alone with girls who seem to have unavoidably misplaced all their clothes, but he really shouldn't be weaving them into a purportedly `intelligent and subtle' novel. Later he tries to reconcile this prurient fantasy with layered, respectable characters by getting them engaged (again a concession to contemporary values that he, also, was questioning but hadn't ditched), but this is just more stupidity: call me an old romantic if you like, but the sort of people that decide to marry after a few days' acquaintance are not also going to be the sort of shrewd, self-aware, substantial characters Faith and Audley are being sold to us as.
There has to be a better way of getting a girl in the story - this is awful. And then having no-one in the secret service bat an eyelid as she tags along on something that's been given top priority by the government. Ugh.
We couldn't have her actually *working* for the service as a peer of Audley - his enlightenment hasn't stretched THAT far. Maybe a secretary...
So: without Faith Steerforth/Jones - competent but bland.
With Faith S/J - stupid (in an annoying way).
Maybe a Silver Dagger award was understandable back when this was written. But in hindsight to put this in a list of best ever? Give me a break.
The Beginning of the Story.......2006-09-04
Anthony Price wrote a long series of books in the seventies and eighties that are an extended meditation on the entanglemnt of past, present, and future and on loyalty in the face of ambiguity. A notional British security service is populated with a large extended cast of characters surrounding one overall protagonist, David Audley, a brilliant ex rugger player and scholar who specializes in untangling elaborate Soviet (and other) espionage schemes. Yet each book is told from the point of view of a different character.
This book is the first of the series written though not the first in internal chronology. In this David meets his future wife, to be an integral part of much of the later work since she becomes an integral part of his character. In fact the nature of their relationship forms another extended meditation on marriage throughout this series. But also a Soviet opposite number, Nikolai Panin, is introduced. In the course of the series the question is continually asked if David and his activities are the moral equivalent of Panin and his. Price always brings his characters to the same answer but never stops questioning. In fact, part of the answer is in the questioning.
In this first book Price had not yet gained the full mastery of plotting and handling multiple characters he later develops but it is really a splendid introduction. As usual in one of these books, some interesting sidelights of history, in this case immediate post WW2, are exposed for our enjoyment.
Average customer rating:
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The Gaze and the Labyrinth
Gaetana Marrone
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
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The Cinema of Italy (24 Frames)
ASIN: 0691008736 |
Book Description
In this, the first comprehensive book on Liliana Cavani, Gaetana Marrone redraws the map of postwar Italian cinema to make room for this extraordinary filmmaker, whose representations of transgressive eroticism, spiritual questing, and psychological extremes test the limits of the medium, pushing it into uncharted areas of discovery. Cavani's film The Night Porter (1974) created a sensation in the United States and Europe. But in many ways her critically renowned endeavors--which also include Francesco di Assisi, Galileo, I cannibali, Beyond Good and Evil, The Berlin Affair, and several operas and documentaries--remain enigmatic to audiences. Here Marrone presents Cavani's work as a cinema of ideas, showing how it takes pleasure in the telling of a story and ultimately revolts against all binding ideological and commercial codes.
The author explores the rich visual language in which Cavani expresses thought, and the cultural icons that constitute her style and images. This approach affords powerful insights into the intricate interlacing of narrated events. We also come to understand the importance assigned to the gaze in the genesis of desire and the acquisition of knowledge. The films come to life in this book as the classical tragedies Cavani intended, where rebels and madmen experience conflict between historical and spiritual reality, the present and the past. Offering intertextual analyses within such fields as psychology, history, and cultural studies, along with production information gleaned from Cavani's personal archives, Marrone boldly advances our understanding of an intriguing, important body of cinematic work.
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The Labyrinth Makers
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ASIN: 0440045924 |
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The Labyrinth Makers/Large Print (Ulverscroft Large Print)
Anthony Price
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ASIN: 0708907113 |
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Multiple books shipped as one item. Save on Shipping/Handling charges.
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- The Mutual Divine Love of Krishna and Radha is Beautiful and Enlightening
- Earth & Heaven
- A very excellent work, but the tattva must be understood
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Love Song of the Dark Lord
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The Bhagavad-Gita : Krishna's Counsel in Time of War (Bantam Classics)
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Darsan
ASIN: 0231110979 |
Book Description
-- Parabola
Jayadeva's dramatic lyrical poem Gitagovinda is one of the most important works in Indian literature and a source of religious inspiration in both medieval and contemporary Vaishnavism. Revealing an intense earthly passion to express the complexities of divine and human love, its songs are an important part of Indian devotional music and literature.
The twentith anniversary edition of the renowned translation by noted scholar Barbara Stoler MIller brings this classic to a new generation of readers and offers fresh insights for those familiar with the text.
Customer Reviews:
The Mutual Divine Love of Krishna and Radha is Beautiful and Enlightening.......2007-10-07
"An emotional attraction towards a personal god began to be expressed in the early centuries of the Christian Era." Ency. Britannica on Line
"Deliverence is not for me in renunciation. I feel the freedom in a thousand bonds of delight." Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
Bhakti Movement for the Love of God:
Bhakti a devotional movement in in Medieval India (& South Asian Hinduism), expressing the intense love and emotional attachment of the faithful to their personal god. Bhakti came to mean "devotional worship and sharing love," the Sanskrit verbal root bhaj, originally meant "to share, to apportion."
Bhakti movement, integrates aspects of personal religious experience, social protest, and a variety of ritual modes around a notion of intimacy with one's deity that colours all aspects of human existence. Bhakti Proponents among Hindus, challenged Vedic sacrificial religion, gender inequity, caste boundaries, and dominant use of Sanskrit as sole religious language.
While all of the principal divinities in Hinduism; Vishnu, Shiva, and Shakti, has their own devotional cults, the Bhakti movement most characteristically developed around Vishnu, principally in his two earthly incarnations as Rama and Krishna. The mystical way of bhakti, claimed by its supporters to be a superior way, has contrasted other ways of achieving salvation, by knowledge, ascetic body disciplines, and ritualistic/good works. It is as well open to all, irrespective of their class, gender, or caste into which they were born.
Krishna's Sacred Love:
An emotional attraction towards a personal god began to be expressed in the early centuries of the Christian Era. It was an attitude furthered by the Indian epics, "the Mahabharata and the Ramayana" and by the Puranas, sacred texts that recount legends of the various appearances of the deities, their incarnations and genealogies. The devotional practices accorded them included the recitation of God's name, the singing of hymns in praise of him, wearing his emblem, undertaking pilgrimages to sacred places serving him in many ways.
Radha, in Hindu mythology, is the beloved consort of Krishna during his earthly life among the cowherds of Vrindavana. Radha, who was the wife of another cowherd was Krishna's unseparable companion. In the Bhakti devotional fellowship Radha, symbolizes the female human soul while Krishna, the divine male. Radha allegorical love has been given expression in lyrical poetry of most Indian languages, including the supremely lyrical Govinda Das. The Bengali god Chaitanya was deemed an incarnation of the unseparable lovers; Krishna on the inside and Radha on the outside. Chaitanya also composed many lost lyrics celebrating the divine love. The Gitagovinda by Jayadeva was a favourite source of inspiration for later miniature painters, in whose works Radha is seen waiting for Krishna to return with the cows in the twilight or engaged with him in amorous play in a forest grove. The images of Krishna playing the flute, enshrined in temples are often accompanied, in the eastern provinces of India, by images of his beloved Radha, and is also venerated in worship.
Veneration of the Buddha:
In Buddhism and Jainism, bhakti was an infrequent technical term implying veneration and awe of Gautama Buddha or Mahavira. It was considered one factor among others such as knowledge of scriptures or asceticism, necessary for spiritual practice. In South Asian Islam, the rudiments of bhakti appeared in works of Sufism, particularly during the reign of Akbar (1556-1605), and in the veneration of a pir, or charismatic Sufi figure. Sikhism, emerging in the sixteenth century, incorporated many practices associated with bhakti, such as an emphasis on the name (Nam) of God in worship.The devotional fervour of the seventh-tenth-century hymnists of South India, the Alvars and the Nayanars, also travelled north, until in time bhakti became an extremely widespread and popular form of Hindu religious life, inspiring a substantial quantity of superb religious poetry and art.During the medieval period (twelfth to mid-eighteenth century), the various possible relationships of the worshipper to God, based on the analogy of human sentiments -- such as that felt by a servant towards his master, friend towards a friend, parent towards a child, child towards a parent, and woman towards her beloved -- were explored in separate schools.
The love of Radha:
A particularly rich tradition centred in Bengal concentrated on the love of Radha, who symbolizes the human soul, for Krishna, the supreme God. In this tradition are Chandidas and the Maithili poet Vidyapati (c. 1400). The greatest single influence was Chaitanya, who in the sixteenth century renewed Krishnaism. He left no writings but inspired many hagiographies, of which the "Nectar of Chaitanya's Life" by Krishna Das (1517) dominates. His profound and everlasting influence on the religious sentiments of his Bengali countrymen propagated the community celebration of Krishna as the most powerful means of revealing the real bhakti attitude. Chaitanya also introduced the worship of 'God,' the director of man's senses, within the very activity of those senses, kept free from egoism and completely surrendered to preman (the intense desire) to satisfy the beloved Krishna. (Condensed & Edited from Ency. Britannica on Line)
Padas, Religious Lyrics:
The religious lyric continues in the so-called padas (verses); one of the greatest poets in the Bhakti genre in which divine love is symbolized by human love is Govinda Das (1537-1612). The songs of Ramprasad Sen (1718-75) similarly honour Shakti as mother of the universe and are still in wide devotional use. The most famous religious lyrics in Gujarati are the poems of the saint Mira Bai (1503-73), who wrote passionate love poems to Krishna, whom she regarded as her husband and lover.
The Gitagovinda:
Jayaveda's Gitagovinda is a dramatic lyrical peom, unique in Indian religious inspiration lyrics. Krishna's love with Radna, of intense passion, in a rite of spring expresses the complexities of Bhakti expression of a sensual human response to divine passion. The poems remain popular, allover the Indian subcontinent, even if they were written 800 years ago, in eastern India. Its songs take an important share in inspiration when performed with devotional music, and consitute a principal subject in medieval Rajput painting.
Editorial Reviews:
* "[Miller] has given us the Indian equivalent of the Song of Songs without the usual sentimentality." D. Shapiro, Parabola
* "[This new translation] beautifully renders the sankrit lyric into poetic English and captures the rich imagery and musical rhythms of Jayadeva's language." choice
Earth & Heaven.......2005-11-09
Enjoy the work for what it is . . . an earthy and sensuous titillation of the senses in order to draw one's being to the heavenly consummation of spiritual attainment. It's just as disastrous to be unmoved by the lower passions as it is to be moved only by such illusions.
~Namaste
A very excellent work, but the tattva must be understood.......1999-06-11
This is one of those works that may be taken out of context, due to a misunderstanding of tattva(principle or truth) and of siddhanta(conclusions). In the mind of a mundane reader, it may appear to be something like "erotic" poetry, like the gross, mundane activities between an ordinary man and woman. Therefore it is essential when reading this work that one has some understanding of the ontological position of Radha and Krishna. For this end, it is a necessity that one studies the work of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, specifically Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad-gita. These works are given in parampara(disciplic succession)coming directly from Sri Krishna Himself. Therefore they are very authoritative in understanding the complex intricacies and knowledge of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His diverse energies. If one does not have a philosophical understanding of Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and has not removed all material contamination from the heart, such as lust, greed, envy, anger, illusion, madness and even subtle desires for profit, adoration and distinction, then reading the "Gita-Govinda" will be nothing short of disasterous. This is because one will mis-understand the loving exchages between Radha and Krishna to be something like mundane sex life. This is a most offensive and improper mentality. "Gita-Govinda" is not mere poetry, like that of some conditioned soul. It is written for liberated souls to relish. Therefore we should be very cautious when approaching this divine and sacred work.
Product Description
An excellent edition, used widely as a text. with critical introduction
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