A Critical Companion to Mel Gibson


Book Description

The twelve essays in A Critical Companion to Mel Gibson offer various interpretations of Mel Gibson’s work, treating this prolific but controversial figure not only as a filmmaker but as a historian, religious thinker, and social philosopher. From The Man Without a Face and Braveheart to The Passion of the Christ, Apocalypto, and Hacksaw Ridge, this interdisciplinary collection mines Gibson’s life and oeuvre for insight into existential problems, Aristotelian virtues, the politics of film, interreligious dialogue, adaptation issues, and much more.




A Critical Companion to Julie Taymor


Book Description

A Critical Companion to Julie Taymor is the most updated and holistic volume on the director currently published. Situating Taymor’s work within the intersections of story and spectacle, contributors to this collection examine issues of creativity, gender, sexuality, and adaptation by focusing on themes from Taymor’s oeuvre including martyrdom, musicality, fidelity, postmodern representations, feminism and queerness, identity, desire, trauma, revenge, hybridity, and obscenity. The result reveals Julie Taymor to be a globally-influenced American director who exhibits and exemplifies the authentic artistry of ingenious storytelling and deserves scholarly attention. This work will be of particular interest to scholars of film, philosophy, popular culture, gender, feminisms, and queer identities.




A Critical Companion to David Fincher


Book Description

The thirteen chapters in this collection analyze David Fincher’s development as a filmmaker, from television commercials and music videos to serving as front runner on the series Mindhunter. The contributors explore a variety of characteristics, including Fincher’s attitudes toward his audiences, his attention to detail, his Gothic sense of evil, his modernization of film noir, and his reinvention of the serial killer. The diversity of approaches highlights the paradoxes of Fincher’s films and style, accentuating the tensions between his innovative methods and storytelling and unpacking the perennial questions of love, life, and death that his films raise. Scholars of film, television, and media will find this book especially salient.




Gore Vidal


Book Description

Baker and Gibson show that while Vidal's novels are tremendously entertaining, they are also serious examinations of a recurring theme - the decline of the West in general and the decline of the United States in particular.




Mel Gibson - Man on a Mission


Book Description

From cult screen actor to major movie director, Mel Gibson has firmly secured his place as a Hollywood player. His latest directorial project, The Passion of the Christ, has landed him centre stage once more, and author Wensley Clarkson reveals Mel's views on the controversy surrounding it. In addition, he'll uncover: the years of girlfriends, drinking and gambling; the inside stories of Mel's Hollywood business deals and how powerful Hollywood figures helped him to overcome his addictions to alcohol and cigarettes, plus the details of his marriage to Robyn and the secrets of his life with his many children. Mel Gibson: Man on a Mission provides an in-depth glimpse into the life of an actor who is a fiercely private man about whom relatively little is really known.




The Fictions of Stephen Graham Jones


Book Description

The Fictions of Stephen Graham Jones offers the first collection of scholarship on Jones's ever-expanding oeuvre.




Passionate Dialogues


Book Description

Passionate Dialogues: Critical Perspectives on Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is a collection of critical essays examining the cultural, religious, philosophical, and psychological impact of Mel Gibson's film.




The Films of Mel Gibson


Book Description




A Critical Companion to Sofia Coppola


Book Description

This volume offers eight interdisciplinary readings to the films of Sofia Coppola, analyzing her oeuvre with a focus on her treatment of masculinity, sexual politics, bodies, and love.




Gore Vidal


Book Description

The first popular book-length study of Gore Vidal's novels.