Abstract

'Screen Writings: Genres, Classics, and Aesthetics' offers close readings of genre films and acknowledged film classics in an attempt to explore both the aesthetics of genre and the definition of  'classic' - as well as the changing perception of so-called classic movies over time. Implicitly theoretical as much as it is unashamedly practical, this book is a model not only of film analysis, but also of the enlightened deployment of cultural studies in the service of cinema study.

Bert Cardullo is Professor and Chair of Media and Communication at the Izmir University of Economics in Turkey.

'Bert Cardullo’s work is one of the brightest beacon lights in the world of film criticism, and ‘Screen Writings’ is a wide-ranging new collection makes that light shine even more brightly.' —Stanley Kauffmann, American film critic

'Bert Cardullo is a fabulous viewer of movies. He practices a kind of film criticism that gives first place to one’s instinct for seeing possibilities in films and for identifying films to see possibilities within. The selection of essays in 'Screen Writings' is remarkable for its range and masterful in its use of language.' —Dudley Andrew, Yale University

'Screen Writings: Genres, Classics, and Aesthetics' offers close readings of genre films and acknowledged film classics in an attempt to explore both the aesthetics of genre and the definition of  'classic' - as well as the changing perception of so-called classic movies over time. Implicitly theoretical as much as it is unashamedly practical, this book is a model not only of text analysis, but also of the enlightened deployment of cultural studies in the service of film study.  The book includes re-considerations of such classic films as ‘I vitelloni’, ‘Grand Illusion’, ‘Winter Light’, and ‘Tokyo Story’; it features genre examinations of the war film (‘Flags of Our Fathers’ and ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’), farce (‘Some Like It Hot’), the road film (‘The Rain People’), the New York-centered movie (‘Manhattan’), and avant-garde pictures that privilege  narrative (‘3-Iron’ and ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Classic Mind’); and 'Screen Writings: Genres, Classics, and Aesthetics' concludes with a searching investigation of the rise of the New American Cinema during a tumultuous decade of social change - from the late 1960s to the early 1970s.

'The film writings of Bert Cardullo are fresh and lucid, in addition to being revelatory of his belief that the study of cinema is a sacred calling. I marvel at Cardullo’s profound perceptiveness – particularly on display in 'Screen Writings' – about the exemplary meaning as well as the ultimate magic of the movies.' —Andrew Sarris, Columbia University

'A lot of what Bert Cardullo has to say about contemporary world cinema would be interesting to a very wide audience… He is someone with an impressive and stimulating command of the difficult dance of the film review.' —Jerry White, University of Alberta

'Among my contemporaries, the best film critic writing in English in America is Bert Cardullo, and 'Screen Writings' proves why.' —Dan Harper, American film scholar

'Bert Cardullo's articles and reviews are invariably intelligent, original, and highly informed. I have been a sturdy admirer of his work for years; he’s a solid writer and an equally solid judge.' —Frederick Morgan, American poet

'Bert Cardullo's work is one of the brightest beacon lights in the world of film criticism, and 'Screen Writings' is a wide-ranging new collection makes that light shine even more brightly.' —Stanley Kauffmann, American film critic