Film Posters of the Russian Avant-Garde (Jumbo)

Customer Reviews:

With art this grand, maybe communism wasn't such a bad idea.......2006-08-18

If you're a graphic designer, you only need browse this excellent book for a moment or two to realize that Russian artists in the 1920's and 30's knew more about how to make a great poster than any American has ever known before or since.

Every poster designer and film buff loves American designer Saul Bass and I'm no exception, but Bass borrowed a lot from these early Russian designers like Rodchenko, and its no wonder--they were an incredible wellspring of creativity. Open any single page in this collection and you'll find a hundred great ideas regarding use of color, perspective, and mixing photography with illustration. Every designer should have this book at hand for reference. Unfortunately many of these early films have been lost or destroyed over time, but one wonders if the best part hasn't been saved--these glorious posters. I can't say enough good things about this book.

Fun and informative.......2001-12-04

I'm not a collector of Russian/Soviet film posters, so all the liner notes could be complete bullocks, but the book is brilliantly large and appears to really want to give the straight story (for instance it gives the title that the artists gave the posters not the movie title associated w/ it). I've only seen a few of the movies it covers so I bought it solely for the art. If you're a fan of the clean Bauhaus style this book is for you.

A superlative survey of pre-Communist Russian graphics........1998-07-14

Susan Pack's overview of the Russian avant-garde film poster, is a visual delight, and a welcome addition to the library of anyone interested in graphic design. This book is a handsome collection of pre-Communist posters from such notable graphic artists as the Stenberg brothers, and Alexander Rodchenko, as well as many other lesser known, yet talented artisans. Anyone familiar with Russian graphics of this period are in for a treat, and those seeing them for the first time will soon become addicted to their graphic impact, and innovative type treatments. A friend I've shown it to has warned me to keep an eye on it, lest it mysteriously disappear!

Customer Reviews:

Adorno/Eisler.......2007-03-08

This is a great book. While it was written over 60 years ago, it is still very applicable to today. It's worth the investment.

Visual Culture in Twentieth-century Germany: Text As Spectacle

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Visual Culture in Twentieth-century Germany: Text As Spectacle

Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0253347181

Book Description

If the 21st century is the digital age, the 20th century can be characterized as the visual age—the era in which visual activity achieved unprecedented prominence. As this volume richly demonstrates, the visual mode was nowhere more dynamic and powerful during the 1900s than in Germany.

Visual Culture in Twentieth-Century Germany explores a wide spectrum of visual media in 20th-century Germany in their critical and social contexts. Contributors examine film, photography, cabaret performance, advertising, architecture, painting, dance, television, and cartography, investigating the ways in which these visual media were inflected by aesthetic innovation, changing attitudes toward gender and sexuality, and the political upheavals of the day. This volume sheds new light on German cultural history during the 1900s and represents a major contribution to the field of visual culture studies.

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Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in America (Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies)
Alan L. Mintz
Manufacturer: University of Washington Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Holocaust | Jewish | World | History | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
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The Holocaust in American Life

The Americanization of the Holocaust

Selling the Holocaust : From Auschwitz to Schindler; How History is Bought, Packaged and Sold

While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust

The Holocaust in American Film (Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art)

ASIN: 029598161X

Book Description

The Holocaust took place far from the United States and involved few Americans, yet rather than receding, this event has assumed a greater significance in the American consciousness with the passage of time. In the depths of the 1940s and 1950s, when the term Holocaust as we now use it had not yet been invented, when survivors were silent and stigmatized, and when the destruction of European Jewry did not figure in public discourse, who could have predicted that the Holocaust would move so forcefully to the center of American culture? Yet today the Holocaust has been admitted into the mainstream media and has become the subject of profitable and high-profile film and television projects. Survivors have become sought-after authorities, whose stories are told not only in books but aloud before respectful audiences on special days of remembrance, and vast projects have been undertaken to interview survivors on videotape before their testimony is no longer available. As a window into the process whereby the Holocaust has been appropriated in American culture, Hollywood movies are particularly luminous. Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in America examines reactions to three films: Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), The Pawnbroker (1965), and Schindler's List (1992), and considers what those reactions reveal about the place of the Holocaust in the American mind, and how those films have shaped the popular perception of the Holocaust. It also considers the difference in the reception of the two earlier films when they first appeared in the sixties and retrospective evaluations of them from closer to our own times. Alan Mintz also addresses the question of how Americans will shape the memory of the Holocaust in the future, concluding with observations on the possibilities and limitations of what is emerging as the major resource for the shaping of Holocaust memory--videotaped survivor testimony. The Holocaust will undoubtedly continue to occupy a place of prominence in the American psyche. Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in America examines some of the influences behind the broad and deep changes in American consciousness and the social forces that permitted the Holocaust to move from the margins to the center of American discourse.

European Film Music (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music) (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music) (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music)

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European Film Music (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music) (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music) (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music)

Manufacturer: Ashgate Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Entertainment | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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ASIN: 0754636593

The Irish in Us: Irishness, Performativity, and Popular Culture

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The Irish in Us: Irishness, Performativity, and Popular Culture

Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0822337401

Book Description

Over the past decade or so, Irishness has emerged as an idealized ethnicity, one with which large numbers of people around the world, and particularly in the United States, choose to identify. Seeking to explain the widespread appeal of all things Irish, the contributors to this collection show that for Americans, Irishness is rapidly becoming the white ethnicity of choice, a means of claiming an ethnic identity while maintaining the benefits of whiteness. At the same time, the essayists challenge essentialized representations of Irishness, bringing attention to the complexities of Irish history and culture that are glossed over in Irish-themed weddings and shamrock tattoos.

Examining how Irishness is performed and commodified in the contemporary transnational environment, the contributors explore topics including Van Morrison’s music, Frank McCourt’s writing, the explosion of Irish-themed merchandising, the practices of heritage seekers, the movie The Crying Game, and the significance of red hair. Whether considering the implications of Garth Brooks’s claim of Irishness and his enormous popularity in Ireland, representations of Irish masculinity in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, or Americans’ recourse to a consoling Irishness amid the racial and nationalist tensions triggered by the events of September 11, the contributors delve into complex questions of ethnicity, consumerism, and globalization. Ultimately, they call for an increased awareness of the exclusionary effects of claims of Irishness and for the cultivation of flexible, inclusive ways of affiliating with Ireland and the Irish.

Contributors. Natasha Casey, Maeve Connolly, Catherine M. Eagan, Sean Griffin, Michael Malouf, Mary McGlynn, Gerardine Meaney, Diane Negra, Lauren Onkey, Maria Pramaggiore, Stephanie Rains, Amanda Third

Hitler's Heroines: Stardom and Womanhood in Nazi Cinema (Culture and the Moving Image)

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Hitler's Heroines: Stardom and Womanhood in Nazi Cinema (Culture and the Moving Image)
Antje Ascheid
Manufacturer: Temple University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 156639984X

Book Description

German film-goers flocked to see musicals and melodramas during the Nazi era. Although the Nazis seemed to require that every aspect of ordinary life advance the fascist project, even the most popular films depicted characters and desires that deviated from the politically correct ideal. Probing into the contradictory images of womanhood that surfaced in these films, Antje Ascheid shows how Nazi heroines negotiated the gender conflicts that confronted contemporary women.

Book Description

This collection of essays offers a view of Nazi Germany through ananalysis of twenty films, representing a sampling of the period'sdirectors and reflecting the film medium's major genres. In spite ofthe control that Goebbels's film industry exercised over all aspects offilmmaking in the Third Reich, the films reveal an individuality thatbelies subsuming them under any one rubric or containing them within anyone theory. Films such as Hitlerjunge Quex, Die groe Liebe, andAuf Wiedersehen Franziska represent the Nazi film industry'sefforts to propagandize through entertainment. Others such asImmensee, Kleider machen Leute, and Der Schimmelreiterreveal an attempt to expropriate Germany's rich literary past for theregime. These literary adaptations and films like Glückskinder, LaHabanera, and Der Kaiser von Kalifornien today seem void ofNazi ideology if viewed outside the context of Nazism. But another film,Der ewige Jude, shocks us with its virulent anti-Semitism andhateful propaganda almost sixty years after its release. All of the films treated, regardless of their fame or notoriety or the level ofcommitment of their directors to the Nazi cause, played an importantrole in a cinema that not only represents the dreams and lives of thecitizens of the Third Reich, but influenced them as well.Robert C.Reimer is professor of German at the University of North Carolina,Charlotte.

Despotic Bodies and Transgressive Bodies: Spanish Culture from Francisco Franco to Jesus Franco (Suny Series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture)

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Despotic Bodies and Transgressive Bodies: Spanish Culture from Francisco Franco to Jesus Franco (Suny Series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture)
Tatjana Pavlovic
Manufacturer: State University of New York Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Direction & Production | Movies | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

Explores new ways to think about privacy and disclosure.

Book Description

Human beings have always smoked, and they probably always will. Every culture in recorded history has smoked something, whether as a cure or for pleasure, whether as part of a ritual or as an aspect of popular culture. It is curious, then, that no history of smoking has been written based on the assumption that smoking – in all of its forms and products – is a cultural phenomenon common to all human societies.Smoke: A Global History of Smoking examines the culture of smoking in different traditions and locations around the world. From opium dens in Victorian England to tobacco in Edo period Japan, and from ganja and cocaine to Havana cigars, Smoke encompasses the subject as no book has before.Based in cultural history, it employs a large number of images as part of its evidence: around 300 illustrations document smoking and smokers of many substances including tobacco, scented cigarettes, marijuana, opium and cocaine. The various essays examine the changing role of smoking in high and popular culture, ranging from images used in advertising to the legal and moral critiques of smoking, and from opera to the internet. Smoke will appeal to all those who smoke, all those who used to smoke, and all those who have tried, and failed, to give it up.

Customer Reviews:

Review for Smokers Club, Inc. 1-19-05.......2005-01-21

SMOKE: A GLOBAL HISTORY OF SMOKING is an entertaining, informative and absorbing book that describes and illustrates the international human preoccupation with smoking over the past six centuries, beginning with Columbus in 1492.

The introduction, written by Sander L. Gilman and Zhou Xun, draws the reader into tobacco's story from the first paragraph. The large, black, beautifully bound and richly presented 400-page volume contains hundreds of illustrations (both in black & white and in color). The artwork is employed to enhance and clarify the multiple essays provided by a variety of qualified writers.

The first several chapters are devoted to smoking in history and culture. These encompass the Middle East, Far East, Africa, Europe, the Americas and other portions of the globe, accompanied by many unusual photos, paintings and lithographs. "The Pleasures and Perils of Smoking in Early Modern England", "The Opium Den in Victorian London" and "The Cocaine Experience" are among the chapters included in this section.

"Smoking in the Arts" is especially enjoyable and explains how the use of tobacco products has been incorporated into various forms of entertainment including art, music, opera, theater and movies, punctuated by photographs of famous actors and actresses.

As the reader continues, "Smoking, Gender and Ethnicity" explores the relationship between social attitudes and smoking. This section shows the ways tobacco art and advertising reflected on women, African American and Native Indian stereotypes in the nineteenth-century and promoted anti-Semitism in Europe.

Although the entire book supplies informative and interesting content in an entertaining manner, I found myself devoting my undivided attention to "Smoking: the "Burning Issue", addressing current smoking issues. Four of the five chapters included are excellent.

Only the essay, "Why Do We Smoke: The Physiology of Smoking" presents a biased, anti-smoker viewpoint by referencing many overused and unproved statistics from previous anti-smoking studies and publications. The author has increased the "annual number of premature deaths attributed to smoking", commonly referenced by anti-smoking organizations, from 400,000 to 500,000 and describes the advantages of smoking cessation aids including the anti-depressants Bupropion and Prozac.

"Smoking, Science and Medicine" and "Engineering Consumer Confidence in the Twentieth Century" are very interesting, informative and unbiased. "Marlboro Man and the Stigma of Smoking" explores the attitude of society toward smokers in the present day. "Smoking & Advertising" follows the innovative marketing techniques developed by the tobacco industry. Smokers and non-smokers alike will recognize the social engineering techniques described and being used today to influence society, de-normalize smokers and spread smoking bans. These essays definitely rate five stars.

"Smoke: A Global History of Smoking" is unique, well organized and an excellent reference source. Also, among all the unique illustrations and beautiful photos, the smoking Santa Claus (Santa Smoking Lucky Strike at Christmas - 1936) is an absolute MUST SEE!

Garnet Dawn
Illinois Smokers Rights

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