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New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader
Coined in the early 1990s to describe a burgeoning film movement, New Queer Cinema has turned the attention of film theorists, students, and audiences to the proliferation of intelligent, stylish, and daring work by lesbian and gay filmmakers within independent cinema and to the infiltration of queer images and themes into the mainstream. Why did this shift take place? Was it political gains, cultural momentum, or market forces that energized the evolution and transformation of this cinematic genre?
New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader provides a definitive and highly readable guide to the development of this important and controversial film movement. The volume is divided into four sections: defining new queer cinema, assessing its filmmakers, examining geographic and national differences, and theorizing spectatorship. Chapters address the work of pivotal directors (such as Todd Haynes and Gregg Araki) and salient films (including Paris is Burning and Boys Don't Cry), as well as unconventional and non-Anglo-American work (experimental filmmaking and third world cinema).
With a critical eye to its uneasy relationship to the mainstream, New Queer Cinema explores the aesthetic, sociocultural, political, and, necessarily, commercial investments of the movement. It is the first full-length study of recent developments in queer cinema that combines indispensable discussions of central issues with exciting new work by key writers.
New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader provides a definitive and highly readable guide to the development of this important and controversial film movement. The volume is divided into four sections: defining new queer cinema, assessing its filmmakers, examining geographic and national differences, and theorizing spectatorship. Chapters address the work of pivotal directors (such as Todd Haynes and Gregg Araki) and salient films (including Paris is Burning and Boys Don't Cry), as well as unconventional and non-Anglo-American work (experimental filmmaking and third world cinema).
With a critical eye to its uneasy relationship to the mainstream, New Queer Cinema explores the aesthetic, sociocultural, political, and, necessarily, commercial investments of the movement. It is the first full-length study of recent developments in queer cinema that combines indispensable discussions of central issues with exciting new work by key writers.
204 pages, Hardcover
First published January 15, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 2, 2014
Of course I loved this book. How could I not?
In all honesty, I probably could have appreciated it more if I hadn't needed to read it so quickly (I'm writing about it for class). But it's a really excellent primer on the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s. It opens with B. Ruby Rich's essay "New Queer Cinema," which sets the stage and the players well, and then the rest of the essays are variations on that theme/responses to Rich's work. It's a device that may not have been intentional, but it works well.
I borrowed this book from the NYU library, but I hope to purchase it because it is a book I will probably refer to often throughout my graduate and professional career. It's an excellent introductory book to read if you have any interest in this subject.
In all honesty, I probably could have appreciated it more if I hadn't needed to read it so quickly (I'm writing about it for class). But it's a really excellent primer on the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s. It opens with B. Ruby Rich's essay "New Queer Cinema," which sets the stage and the players well, and then the rest of the essays are variations on that theme/responses to Rich's work. It's a device that may not have been intentional, but it works well.
I borrowed this book from the NYU library, but I hope to purchase it because it is a book I will probably refer to often throughout my graduate and professional career. It's an excellent introductory book to read if you have any interest in this subject.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews