Full Description
Omnibus films bring together the contributions of two or more filmmakers. Does this make them inherently contradictory texts? How do they challenge critical categories in cinema studies? What are their implications for auteur theory?
As the first book-length exploration of internationally distributed, multi-director episode films, David Scott Diffrient's Omnibus Films: Theorizing Transauthorial Cinema fills a considerable gap in the history of world cinema and aims to expand contemporary understandings of authorship, genre, narrative, and transnational production and reception. Delving into such unique yet representative case studies as If I Had a Million (1932), Forever and a Day (1943), Dead of Night (1945), Quartet (1948), Love and the City (1953), Boccaccio '70, (1962), New York Stories (1989), Tickets (2005), Visions of Europe (2005), and Paris, je t'aime (2006), this book covers much conceptual ground and crosses narrative as well as national borders in much the same way that omnibus films do.
Omnibus Films is a particularly thought-provoking book for those working in the fields of auteur theory, film genre and transnational cinema, and is suitable for advanced students in Cinema Studies.
Contents
Acknowledgements; Part I: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives; 1. 'Beginnings without Ends': Conceptual Parameters and the Critical Discourses of Episodic Cinema; 2. A Cinema of Regulated Variety and Excess: Antecedents and Extensions of Episodic Cinema; 3. Key Concepts in Transauthorial Cinema: Abundance, Change, Containment, and Order; 4. Key Concepts in Film Studies: Audience, Authorship, Genre, and Nation; Part II: Get on the Omnibus: Case Studies in Transauthorial Cinema; 5. Wartime Consensus Pictures and the 'Housing' of History: From Forever and a Day to Dead of Night; 6. Three Cases of Maugham: Quartet, Trio, and Encore; 7. Episodic Erotics and the Politics of Place: From Love in the City to Love and Anger; 8. Collective Opposition, Political Participation, and Worldwide Competition: From Visions of Eight to Visions of Europe; 9. The Recent Revival of the Omnibus Film: From Paris, je t'aime to 11'09"01; Filmography; Notes; Index
