A history of Greek cinema
By: by Vrasidas Karalis
Publisher: Continuum
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 318
ISBN-13: 9781441135001; 9781441194473
Subjects: Motion pictures; History
Description: The history of Greek cinema is a rather obscure and unexamined affair. Greek cinema started slowly and then collapsed; for several years it struggled to reinvent itself, produced its first mature works, then collapsed completely and almost vanished. Because of such a complex historical trajectory no comprehensive survey of the development of Greek cinema has been written in English. This book is the first to explore its development and the contexts that defined it by focusing on its main films, personalities and theoretical discussions. A History of Greek Cinema focuses on the early decades and the attempts to establish a "national" cinema useful to social cohesion and national identity. It also analyses the problems and the dilemmas that many Greek directors faced in order to establish a distinct Greek cinema language and presents the various stages of development throughout the background of the turbulent political history of the country. The book combines historical analysis and discussions about cinematic form in to construct a narrative history about Greek cinematic successes and failures.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction to Greek cinema; title: Early Greek cinema (1905-1945); title: Constructing a visual language (1945-1960); title: Glory and demise (1960-1970); title: The formalist moment: the inward gaze and the new Greek cinema (1970-1981); title: The new decade: hope and disenchantment (1981-1994); title: The polyphony of the decentred gaze: the other as cultural hero (1995-2010); title: Recapitulation.