Naiselokuva - 2 kirjaa: Women’s Pictures ja Home is where…

Kaksi tärkeää kirjaa naiselokuvan (women’s pictures), nyyhkyelokuvan (weeepie) ja melodraaman historiasta, olenuksesta ja tekijöistä sekä tähdistä.

Annette Kuhn: Women’s Puctures. Feminism and Cinema. Routledge 1982, pehmeäkantinen, 226 sivua.

Home is where the Heart is. Studies in Melodrama and the Woman’s Film. Ed. Christine Gledhill. BFI 1987, pehmeäkantinen, lähes kuin uusi, 364 sivua.

This pioneering and influential work of feminist theory has been extensively updated by the author to chart the changes in feminist film theory and practice between the eighties and the nineties. Readers, whether engaged in the making of films, the study of them, or simply the pleasure of viewing them, will appreciate the way in which the author discusses and demystifies the current methods of analysis, including semiotic and psychoanalytical approaches.

The films used as points of discussion are drawn from both mainstream and alternative cinema, institutions which are themselves examined in relation to their production, distribution and exhibition practices.

The thesis proposed by Annette Kuhn is an exciting namely, that feminism and cinema, taken together, could provide the basis for new forms of expression, providing the opportunity for a truly feminist alternative cinema in terms of film language, of reading that language and of representing the world.

Since the early 70s, film theory has focused on melodrama as a particularly challenging genre. Feminism, in particular, has claimed a stake in re-examination of the form, raising many critical questions about the relation between gender and culture. This collection contains the most exciting contributions from nearly two decades of critical endeavor to come to terms with these questions. Christine Gledhill's overview precedes essays that range from classics by Thomas Elsaesser, Laura Mulvey, and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith to newly commissioned perspectives covering Hollywood's output from the early 20s to the 60s. Home is Where the Heart Is constitutes invaluable reading for anyone interested in the role of melodrama in the history of cinema, feminist film criticism, and analyses of popular culture.

Review

"A challenging and broadening read." -- Financial Times

About the Author

Christine Gledhill is Professor of Cinema Studies at Staffordshire
University.She has written numerous articles on feminist film
criticism, on melodrama, and on British cinema. Her recent publications
include the coedited anthologies, Nationalising Feminity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War (1996) and Reinventing Film Studies (2000).