Film Cultures
- Janet Harbord - Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK
"Film Cultures weaves together insights from cultural theory and film studies to provide a complex and absorbing theoretical account of contemporary film culture. Harbord writes with authority, imagination and wit and her delicate deployment of modernist and postmodernist cultural accounts makes rewarding reading." - Christine Geraghty, Professor of Film and Television, University of Glasgow
Film Cultures argues that our tastes for film connect us to social, spatial and temporal networks of exchange and meaning. Whether we view film in the multiplex, arthouse or the gallery, as cinema premiere, video hire or from a cable channel, whether we approach film as a singular object or a hypertext linked to ancillary products, our relationship to film is inhabiting a culture. Shifting the focus of film analysis from the text to paths of circulation, Film Cultures questions how film connects us to social status, and national and global affiliations.
'Film Cultures is thought-provoking and challenging. By opening film theory up to the many simultaneous networks of relation (that is, the cultures) of film, it asks both viewer and student to take film more seriously' - Communication Research Trends
`Film Cultures weaves together insights from cultural theory and film studies to provide a complex and absorbing theoretical account of contemporary film culture. Harbord argues that the spaces in which individual films are produced, exhibited and consumed need to be explored, thus opening up for analysis the circuits, networks and screens through which particular film cultures are constructed. Harbord writes with authority, imagination and wit and her delicate deployment of modernist and postmodernist cultural accounts makes rewarding reading' - Christine Geraghty, Professor of Film and Television, Glasgow University
"In this slim, well-researched volume, Harbord argues that the "value" of a film is relational. What viewers bring to a film - i.e., the influences of family, education, and work - lead them to accept certain texts and to reject others. And as they circulate through different domains, films constitute a range of aesthetic objects and practices competing for status."
This book will be a great addition to my students' reading list.
The title is missleading. I thought it would be about how films are influenced by social events and vice versa. In fact it is about different arenas where film production and social live are connected, such as film festivals. A subtitile to specify the books content would be helpfull.
Wonderful: recommended reading for all film students at honours level (for 3 years)
Janey Harbord's booko Film Cultures has become a classic in a very limited field, that of cinema exhibition and spectatorship. Harbord's book situates cinema within a network of (sometimes conflicting) discourses and cultures (marketing, aesthetic, exhibition etc) and attempts to unravel the knot that many think of as film.
This is certainly a good undergraduate level study that encourages students to realise that film and cinema is more than just images on screen and can be looked at in a variety of different ways.
This book will be featuring on the essential reading list for my film modules for next semester. Providing an easily accessible introduction to the cultures of production and consumption that surround film as a text, Habord writes in an engaging style that students will enjoy.
