Bøker i Contemporary Film Directors-serien

A penetrating analysis of a director whose work exemplifies Europe's engagement with Hollywood

Films like Zama and The Headless Woman have made Lucrecia Martel a fixture on festival marquees and critic's best lists. Though often allied with mainstream figures and genre frameworks, Martel works within art cinema, and since her 2001 debut The Swamp she has become one of international film's most acclaimed auteurs.Gerd Gemünden offers a career-spanning analysis of a filmmaker dedicated to revealing the ephemeral, fortuitous, and endless variety of human experience. Martel's focus on sound, touch, taste, and smell challenge film's usual emphasis on what a viewer sees. By merging of these and other experimental techniques with heightened realism, she invites audiences into film narratives at once unresolved, truncated, and elliptical. Gemünden aligns Martel's filmmaking methods with the work of other international directors who criticizeand pointedly circumventthe high-velocity speeds of today's cinematic storytelling. He also explores how Martel's radical political critique forces viewers to rethink entitlement, race, class, and exploitation of indigenous peoples within Argentinian society and beyond.

Explores David Lynch's experimental aesthetics

Rob White's highly readable book, which includes a major new interview with Todd Haynes, is the first comprehensive study of the director's work.

Having spearheaded the bourgeoning Nouvelle Vague scene in the late 1950s and developed a distinctive style involving still images, Chris Marker stands among the most influential filmmakers of the postwar era. This study includes interviews with the director and investigates his core themes and motivations.

A penetrating study of the Iranian filmmaker Kiarostami's life and work.

The first complete study of the protean filmmaker

Argues for Abel Ferrara's place in a line of grand inventors who have blurred distinctions between industry and avant-garde film, including Orson Welles, Monte Hellman, and Nicholas Ray. This work also argues that films such as "Bad Lieutenant" express this evil through visionary characters struggling against the inadmissible.

Traces Wong Kar-Wai's perennial themes of time, love, and loss, and examines the political implications of his films, especially concerning the handover of former British colony Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China. This book covers a range of Wong's work, from his first film, "As Tears Go By", to "2046".

A perceptive analysis of the daring Danish filmmaker's oeuvre

A critical analysis of an exceptional American director

Since the release of Do the Right Thing in 1989, Spike Lee has established himself as a cinematic icon. Lee's mostly independent films garner popular audiences while at the same time engaging in substantial political and social commentary. The author argues that Lee uses excess in his films to intervene in issues of philosophy, politics, and art.