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PODCAST

New Books in Film

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

tv & film

All Episodes

25:16

Cutter’s Way

New Books in Film ·

2023/10/16

There may be some dated or downright silly elements of Cutter’s Way, Ivan Passer’s 1981 mystery—but what’s great about it outweighs any of its clumsiness and stays in the viewer’s memory. Not enough people know about John Heard’s performance as the unhinged, unlikable, yet undeniably compelling Alex Cutter; this film without any scenes of military conflict is one of the best about Vietnam. Join Mike and Dan for a conversation about the ways in which the title character resembles Captain Ahab

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65:03

Smith Mehta, "The New Screen Ecology in India:...

New Books in Film ·

2023/10/15

In The New Screen Ecology in India: Digital Transformation of Media (British Film Institute, 2023), Smith Mehta takes a deep dive into the world of social media platforms and their impact on contemporary film and television production, arguing that they have fundamentally shifted the creator dynamics of these industries. Through first-hand research with creators, platform and portal executives, and intermediaries such as talent agents and multi-channel networks, Mehta develops the concept of the

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72:39

Paul Crenshaw, "Melt with Me: Coming of Age and Other...

New Books in Film ·

2023/10/12

In his new collection of essays, Melt With Me (Mad Creek Press, 2023), Paul Crenshaw examines the intersection of 1980s pop culture, the Cold War, and the trials of coming of age. Crenshaw takes up a range of topics from Star Wars to video games, Choose Your Own Adventure books to the Satanic Panic. Blending the personal with the historical, levity with gravity, Crenshaw shows how pop culture shaped those who grew up in 1980s America: how Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative drove fears of nuclear

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42:14

Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik, "Maghreb Noir: The...

New Books in Film ·

2023/10/11

Upon their independence, Moroccan, Algerian, and Tunisian governments turned to the Global South and offered military and financial aid to Black liberation struggles. Tangier and Algiers attracted Black American and Caribbean artists eager to escape American white supremacy; Tunis hosted African filmmakers for the Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage; and young freedom fighters from across the African continent established military training camps in Morocco. North Africa became a haven for

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59:52

Marlena Williams, "Night Mother: A Personal and...

New Books in Film ·

2023/10/10

Never watch The Exorcist, Marlena Williams's mother told her, just as she'd been told by her own mother as a Catholic teen in rural Oregon when the horror classic premiered. And like her mother, Mary, Williams watched it anyway. An inheritance passed from mother to daughter, The Exorcist looms large--in popular culture and in Williams's own life, years after Mary's illness and death. In Night Mother: A Personal and Cultural History of the Exorcist (Mad Creek Books, 2023), Williams investigates the

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21:34

Lost in America

New Books in Film ·

2023/10/09

“What makes something funny” is difficult to articulate, but Mike and Dan try with one of their favorite comedies, Albert Brooks’ Lost in America. His 1985 film about married professionals who yearn to hit the road (like they saw in Easy Rider) works because there’s nothing to rescue the viewer from the awkwardness and downward spiral of every scene. The characters’ conflicts and anxieties are hilarious—just not to them. Many of us have yearned to start life anew in a world elsewhere or live like

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52:31

Geraint D'Arcy, "Mise en scène, Acting, and Space in...

New Books in Film ·

2023/10/07

Geraint D'Arcy's book Mise en scène, Acting, and Space in Comics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) explores some of the less frequently questioned ideas which underpin comics creation and criticism. “Mise en scène” is a term which refers to the way in which visual elements work together to create meaning in comics. It is a term that comics have borrowed from cinema, which borrowed it in turn from theatre. But comics are not film and they are not cinema, so how can this term be of any use? If we consider

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24:44

The Vanishing

New Books in Film ·

2023/10/02

If you have seen Sluizer’s original 1988 thriller—not his 1993 American remake with Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland--you’ll know exactly why we are doing it as a companion piece to Rope. You’ll also nod along with us when we praise the film’s cold precision: it’s not surprising that Sluzier states in the opening clip that Stanley Kubrick admired the film and saw it ten times. Why we often tell people to watch films but to not read anything first about them, the thrill of assembling pieces of

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38:26

Melanie Williams, "A Taste of Honey" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

New Books in Film ·

2023/10/01

What makes a film a classic? In A Taste of Honey (Bloomsbury, 2023), published as part of the BFI Film Classics series, Melanie Williams, a Professor of Film and Television Studies in the School of Art, Media and American Studies at the University of East Anglia, tells the story of the films production and reception. The book explores the key themes of the film situating ideas of class, gender, race, and sexuality in both a historical context as well as thinking through the contemporary and

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59:24

Hieyoon Kim, "Celluloid Democracy: Cinema and...

New Books in Film ·

2023/09/27

Before South Korea became the democracy and media powerhouse that it is today, it underwent several decades of authoritarian rule during the Cold War from the late 1940s to late 1980s. Amidst this authoritarian period, South Korea’s filmmakers, distributors, and exhibitors nevertheless found ways to push the boundaries of both cinema and politics. This is the topic of Hieyoon Kim’s Celluloid Democracy: Cinema and Politics in Cold War South Korea (University of California Press, 2023). Kim is an

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21:46

Rope

New Books in Film ·

2023/09/25

Rope (1948) may not be top-shelf Hitchcock, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting and worth repeated viewings. After arguing back at those who find Jimmy Stewart miscast, Mike and Dan talk about how the film stands as another example of Hitchcock using violence to dramatize the sex lives of his characters. Mike lists the ways in which the director resembles the killer, specifically Brandon: a Nabokovian figure through which Hitchcock shows the audience what it’s like to have an artistic

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48:23

Diana Rickard, "The New True Crime: How the Rise of...

New Books in Film ·

2023/09/23

The New True Crime: How the Rise of Serialized Storytelling Is Transforming Innocence (NYU Press, 2023) by Dr. Diana Rickard examines how serialized crime shows became an American obsession. TV shows and podcasts like Making a Murderer, Serial, and Atlanta Monster have taken the cultural zeitgeist by storm, and contributed to the release of wrongly imprisoned people—such as Adnan Syed. The popularity of these long-form true crime docuseries has sparked greater attention to issues of inequality,

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52:46

Jeffrey Angles, ed., "Godzilla and Godzilla Raids...

New Books in Film ·

2023/09/21

Godzilla emerged from the sea to devastate Tokyo in the now-classic 1954 film, produced by Tōhō Studios and directed by Ishirō Honda, creating a global sensation and launching one of the world’s most successful movie and media franchises. Awakened and transformed by nuclear weapons testing, Godzilla serves as a terrifying metaphor for humanity’s shortsighted destructiveness: this was the intent of Shigeru Kayama, the science fiction writer who drafted the 1954 original film and its first sequel and,

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30:41

Sorcerer

New Books in Film ·

2023/09/19

In 1973, William Friedkin terrorized the world with The Exorcist and then decided to make a film even more grim: a remake of George Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear. This was an audacious move, since the 1953 original was already well-loved and regarded as one of the most suspenseful films of all time. But Friedkin followed his muse and created Sorcerer (1977), which belongs in the pantheon of Great Underappreciated Films. Like The Exorcist, it’s a frightening peek into Hell; unlike that film, however,

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34:29

A Better Way to Buy Books

New Books in Film ·

2023/09/12

Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has already raised more than $27,000,000. In this interview, Andy Hunter, founder and CEO discusses his journey to creating one of the most revolutionary new organizations in the book world. Bookshop has found a way to retain the convenience of online book shopping while also supporting independent bookstores that are the backbones of many local

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71:12

Kristen Lopez, "But Have You Read the Book?: 52...

New Books in Film ·

2023/09/12

Published earlier this year from Running Press, Kristen Lopez’s But Have You Read the Book?: 52 Literary Gems That Inspired Our Favorite Films looks at almost a hundred years of film adaptations of novels. The book offers a survey of how directors, actors, and screenwriters have transformed the raw material of fiction into works that were sometimes transgressive, sometimes reverential, and always compelling. Among the adaptations are William Wyler’s Wuthering Heights (1939) from the Emily Bronte

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18:46

The Blues Brothers

New Books in Film ·

2023/09/11

Jake and Elwood sing “Everybody Needs Someone to Love” and everybody loves The Blues Brothers: “You … me … them … everybody!” Join Mike and Dan for a conversation about John Landis’s 1980 film that has become movie comfort-food for people raised on the original SNL and others who have come to the film without any knowledge of John Belushi or Dan Ackroyd’s careers. So many comedy sketches fall flat when stretched into the length of a film, but Landis and Ackroyd avoided this when writing The Blues

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70:08

Robyn Muir, "The Disney Princess Phenomenon: A...

New Books in Film ·

2023/09/11

The Disney Princesses are a billion-dollar industry, known and loved by children across the globe. In The Disney Princess Phenomenon: A Feminist Analysis (Bristol University Press, 2023) Dr. Robyn Muir provides an exploratory and holistic examination of this worldwide commercial and cultural phenomenon in its key representations: films, merchandising and marketing, and park experiences. Muir highlights the messages and images of femininity found within the Disney Princess canon and provides a

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33:07

Tingting Hu, "Victims, Perpetrators and...

New Books in Film ·

2023/09/09

How are women represented in Chinese crime films? In what ways do the representation reflect traditional Chinese values and contemporary Chinese social-cultural norms? How did boys’ love culture emerge in China? What is the role of the Chinese state in queer media production and queer culture in China? In a conversation with Joanne Kuai, PhD candidate at Karlstad University, Sweden, and an affiliated PhD student at NIAS, Tingting Hu talked about her book Victims, Perpetrators and Professionals: The

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67:36

Chris Yogerst, "The Warner Brothers" (UP of Kentucky,...

New Books in Film ·

2023/09/08

One of the oldest and most recognizable studios in Hollywood, Warner Bros. is considered a juggernaut of the entertainment industry. Since its formation in the early twentieth century, the studio has been a constant presence in cinema history, responsible for the creation of acclaimed films, blockbuster brands, and iconic superstars. In The Warner Brothers (UP of Kentucky, 2023), Chris Yogerst follows the siblings from their family's humble origins in Poland, through their young adulthood in the

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737 results

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