Overview

"The Films of Jess Franco looks at the work of Jesús """"Jess"""" Franco (1930-2013), one of the most prolific and madly inventive filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is best known as the director of jazzy, erotically charged horror movies featuring mad scientists, lesbian vampires, and women in prison, but he also dabbled in a multitude of genres from comedy to science fiction to pornography. Although he built his career in the ghetto of low-budget exploitation cinema, he managed to create a body of work that is deeply personal, frequently political, and surprisingly poetic. Editors Antonio Lázaro-Reboll and Ian Olney have assembled a team of scholars to examine Franco’s offbeat films, which command an international cult following and have developed a more mainstream audience in recent years. Arguing that his multifaceted, paradoxical cinema cannot be pinned down by any one single approach, this edited volume features twelve original essays on Franco’s movies written from a variety of different perspectives. This collection does not avoid the methodologies most commonly used in the past to analyze Franco’s work—auteur criticism, genre criticism, and cult film criticism—yet it does show how Franco’s films complicate these critical approaches. The contributors open up fresh avenues for academic inquiry by considering his oeuvre from a range of viewpoints, including transnational film studies, cinephilia studies, and star studies. The Films of Jess Franco seeks to address the scholarly neglect of this legendary cult director and to broaden the conversation around the director’s work in ways that will be of interest to fans and academics alike."

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9780814343166

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Reviews

This volume is an overdue collection of essays on a bizarre, iconoclastic, yet somehow enduringly consequential filmmaker: Jess Franco. L?zaro-Reboll and Olney's volume is the best one yet in terms of offering a helpful range of methods, focal points, and evolving analyses to keep pace with such a dynamic, indefatigable, and endlessly mutating filmmaker.-- (03/02/2018) Jess Franco directed films that are often seen as wild, eclectic, and undisciplined. The brilliance of this work is to make sense of Franco's work without losing its energy or variety. This is a clear and coherent collection that features a diverse range of scholars who approach Franco with differing approaches and concerns. Most amazingly, this is a collection which manages to tread an almost impossible tightrope with ease: It remains rigorously academic without ever losing sight of the things that draw audiences to Franco's films.-- (03/02/2018) Given its strong scholarship, breadth and depth of inquiry, and inclusion of diverse perspectives, this anthology is an invaluable resource for researchers on Franco, Spanish cinema, and cult film. I am truly impressed by the range and quality of this collection.-- (03/02/2018) The Films of Jess Franco succeeds admirably in supporting the long overdue recognition of Franco as a cinematic (anti-) auteur whose career and work are worthy of in-depth analysis. [. . .] For the long-suffering Franco-phile, the publication of this book signals the vindication of a previously overlooked moviemaker worthy of serious study and unbridled celebration.-- (08/07/2018) The authors in The Films of Jess Franco, by the mere choice of Franco as a critical focus, exhibit a commitment to intensive research. The product of this research is an engaging look at a forgotten corner of exploitation cinema. . . . The book proves that Franco's oeuvre has been almost criminally ignored, his horrotica a deep well for an academic discussion of exploitation cinema's artistic merits.-- (09/17/2018)

Given its strong scholarship, breadth and depth of inquiry, and inclusion of diverse perspectives, this anthology is an invaluable resource for researchers on Franco, Spanish cinema, and cult film. I am truly impressed by the range and quality of this collection.-- (03/02/2018) Jess Franco directed films that are often seen as wild, eclectic, and undisciplined. The brilliance of this work is to make sense of Franco's work without losing its energy or variety. This is a clear and coherent collection that features a diverse range of scholars who approach Franco with differing approaches and concerns. Most amazingly, this is a collection which manages to tread an almost impossible tightrope with ease: It remains rigorously academic without ever losing sight of the things that draw audiences to Franco's films.-- (03/02/2018) This volume is an overdue collection of essays on a bizarre, iconoclastic, yet somehow enduringly consequential filmmaker: Jess Franco. L?zaro-Reboll and Olney's volume is the best one yet in terms of offering a helpful range of methods, focal points, and evolving analyses to keep pace with such a dynamic, indefatigable, and endlessly mutating filmmaker.-- (03/02/2018) The authors in The Films of Jess Franco, by the mere choice of Franco as a critical focus, exhibit a commitment to intensive research. The product of this research is an engaging look at a forgotten corner of exploitation cinema. . . . The book proves that Franco's oeuvre has been almost criminally ignored, his horrotica a deep well for an academic discussion of exploitation cinema's artistic merits.-- (09/17/2018) The Films of Jess Franco succeeds admirably in supporting the long overdue recognition of Franco as a cinematic (anti-) auteur whose career and work are worthy of in-depth analysis. [. . .] For the long-suffering Franco-phile, the publication of this book signals the vindication of a previously overlooked moviemaker worthy of serious study and unbridled celebration.-- (08/07/2018)

This volume is an overdue collection of essays on a bizarre, iconoclastic, yet somehow enduringly consequential filmmaker: Jess Franco. L?zaro-Reboll and Olney's volume is the best one yet in terms of offering a helpful range of methods, focal points, and evolving analyses to keep pace with such a dynamic, indefatigable, and endlessly mutating filmmaker.-- (03/02/2018) Given its strong scholarship, breadth and depth of inquiry, and inclusion of diverse perspectives, this anthology is an invaluable resource for researchers on Franco, Spanish cinema, and cult film. I am truly impressed by the range and quality of this collection.-- (03/02/2018) Jess Franco directed films that are often seen as wild, eclectic, and undisciplined. The brilliance of this work is to make sense of Franco's work without losing its energy or variety. This is a clear and coherent collection that features a diverse range of scholars who approach Franco with differing approaches and concerns. Most amazingly, this is a collection which manages to tread an almost impossible tightrope with ease: It remains rigorously academic without ever losing sight of the things that draw audiences to Franco's films.-- (03/02/2018) The authors in The Films of Jess Franco, by the mere choice of Franco as a critical focus, exhibit a commitment to intensive research. The product of this research is an engaging look at a forgotten corner of exploitation cinema. . . . The book proves that Franco's oeuvre has been almost criminally ignored, his horrotica a deep well for an academic discussion of exploitation cinema's artistic merits.-- (09/17/2018) The Films of Jess Franco succeeds admirably in supporting the long overdue recognition of Franco as a cinematic (anti-) auteur whose career and work are worthy of in-depth analysis. [. . .] For the long-suffering Franco-phile, the publication of this book signals the vindication of a previously overlooked moviemaker worthy of serious study and unbridled celebration.-- (08/07/2018)

Author Information

Antonio Lázaro-Reboll is senior lecturer in Hispanic studies at the University of Kent (UK), where he teaches Spanish and European film. He is the author of Spanish Horror Film and co-editor with Andrew Willis of Spanish Popular Cinema. Ian Olney is an associate professor of English at York College of Pennsylvania, where he teaches film studies. He is the author of Zombie Cinema and Euro Horror: Classic European Horror Cinema in Contemporary American Culture, as well as numerous essays on European cinema and the horror film.

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