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Awards
OverviewFull Product DetailsAuthor: Sonja FritzschePublisher: Liverpool University Press Imprint: Liverpool University Press Volume: 47 Dimensions: Width: 16.30cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 23.90cm Weight: 0.567kg ISBN: 9781781380383ISBN 10: 1781380384 Pages: 290 Publication Date: 16 June 2014 Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , General , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print  This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of ContentsIntroduction - Sonja Fritzsche PART I: AFRICA 1. The Environmental Dominant in Wanuri Kahiu’s Pumzi - Ritch Calvin PART II: ASIA 2. Death Ray on a Coral Island as China’s First Science Fiction Film - Jie Zhang 3. Indian Science Fiction Cinema: An Overview - Jessica Langer and Dominic Alessio 4. On the Monstrous Planet: or, How Godzilla Took a Roman Holiday - Takayuki Tatsumi, translated by Seth Jacobowitz PART III: EUROPE 5. Invaders, Launchpads and Hybrids: The Importance of Transmediality in British Science Fiction Film in the 1950s - Derek Johnston 6. Gender and Apocalypse in Eastern European Cinema - Jason Merrill 7. Casting for a Socialist Earth: Multicultural Whiteness in the East German/Polish Science-Fiction Film Silent Star (1960) - Evan Torner 8. Looking for French Science Fiction Cinema - Daniel Tron 9. Science Fiction Interventions in Irish Cinema - Katie Moylan 10. The Uncomfortable Relationship Between Science Fiction and Italy:Film, Humor, and Gender - Rafaella Boccolini PART IV: NORTH AMERICA 11. Are Black Women the Future of Man? The Role of Black Women in Political and Cultural Transformation in Science Fiction from the US and Cameroon - Robyn Citizen PART V: SOUTH AMERICA 12. Maradona on the Moon: Postcolonial Politics and Cultural Hybridity in Argentina’s Goodbye Dear Moon - Mariano Paz 13. Alert Limit! A Short History of Brazilian Science Fiction Film and Its Fight for Survival in a Rarefied Atmosphere - Alfredo Suppia PART VI: DIGITAL CINEMA 14. Digital Film and Audiences - Pawel Frelik Recommended ViewingReviewsA welcome and overdue addition to the critical discourse surrounding science fiction cinema. This book provides an important point of entry for those academics and students who wish to broaden their understanding of science fiction film as a global phenomenon rather than simply as a Hollywood or Anglophone practice. A welcome and overdue addition to the critical discourse surrounding science fiction cinema. This book provides an important point of entry for those academics and students who wish to broaden their understanding of science fiction film as a global phenomenon rather than simply as a Hollywood or Anglophone practice. -- Dr Peter Wright AMONGST THE BURGEONING NUMBER of hand--books and companions to science fiction (among other genres) published recently, Sonja Fritzsche's Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film stands out. First, it targets a unique subset of SF and is thus itself unique; second, its publication legitimates that subset as an object of study. Given the increasing focus on visual media and on SF beyond the Anglo-American, recog--nizing world science fiction film as a sub-genre seems only natural. As a companion, Fritzsche's edited vol--ume provides an introduction to SF film outside Holly--wood, and its accessible essays offer a starting point for scholars and general readers interested in broadening their study and/or consumption of SF film. The book's fourteen chapters are organized into six sections by geographical region. Fritzsche's introduc--tion outlines the volume's goals and the significance of this rising genre, also offering caveats to the uniniti--ated (1), positing the sophistication of the meaning-making practices (1) present in a corpus that might be dismissed by audiences inured to Hollywood spectacle. It thoughtfully outlines the volume's goal-- to enable scholars to scrutinize and broaden the established ways of talking about science fiction film (3)--and traces the connections between its various chapters. These chap--ters cover most of the globe, but a certain imbalance appears, with some sections including only one or two chapters, whereas that on Europe includes six. Certainly, this reflects the unequal conditions of film production around the world, as well as different levels of interest from potential contributors. Indeed, the first section, on Africa, includes only one essay, Ritch Calvin's examination of The Environmen--tal Dominant in Wanuri Kahiu's Pumzi, a 2009 Kenyan film the title of which translates as Breath. Calvin's es--say is typical of most of the book's chapters, as it intro--duces the film first within the context of a national film tradition unfamiliar to most readers and then situates a film or corpus of films in relation to the more familiar body of SF film and/or applies a theoretical approach as--sociated with SF studies. Calvin examines Pumzi, which extrapolates the global problem of water scarcity into a dystopian future, via eco-feminism. Organizationally-speaking, I might have labeled this section Africa and the African Diaspora and included here the only essay in the section on North America, Robyn Citizen's The Role of Black Women in Political and Cultural Transfor--mation in Science Fiction from the US, UK, and Cam--eroon. Citizen contextualizes black women characters in SF film in general, then demonstrates how characters in Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men (2006), Paul W. S. Anderson's Alien vs. Predator (2004), and Jean-Pierre Bekolo's Les Saignantes (2005) transcend stereotypes, becoming heroic subjects. Part II: Asia offers a bit more balance, with three es--says, one each on China, India, and Japan, nations with varying relationships to the production of SF film. Jie Zhang's chapter makes the case for Death Ray on Coral Island as China's First Science Fiction Film, situating this 1980 film within the context of Chinese SF litera--ture and the changing landscape of Chinese politics and various regimes' attitudes to speculative fictions in print or on screen. Jessica Langer and Dominic Alessio survey the genre on the sub-continent, then examine in greater detail the blockbuster success of Endhiran (2011). Taka--yuki Tatsumi's ludic contribution is an outlier in the vol--ume. A previously published work translated by Seth Ja-cobowitz, On the Monstrous Planet, Or How Godzilla Took a Roman Holiday is intellectual parkour, combin--ing memoir, erudition, and dramatic mental leaps from Japanese folklore and the Shinto kami to Melville, Oates, and Bradbury's Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film stands out. First, it targets a unique subset of SF and is thus itself unique; second, its publication legitimates that subset as an object of study. Given the increasing focus on visual media and on SF beyond the Anglo-American, recog--nizing world science fiction film as a sub-genre seems only natural. As a companion, Fritzsche's edited vol--ume provides an introduction to SF film outside Holly--wood, and its accessible essays offer a starting point for scholars and general readers interested in broadening their study and/or consumption of SF film. The book's fourteen chapters are organized into six sections by geographical region. Fritzsche's introduc--tion outlines the volume's goals and the significance of this rising genre, also offering caveats to the uniniti--ated (1), positing the sophistication of the meaning-making practices (1) present in a corpus that might be dismissed by audiences inured to Hollywood spectacle. It thoughtfully outlines the volume's goal-- to enable scholars to scrutinize and broaden the established ways of talking about science fiction film (3)--and traces the connections between its various chapters. These chap--ters cover most of the globe, but a certain imbalance appears, with some sections including only one or two chapters, whereas that on Europe includes six. Certainly, this reflects the unequal conditions of film production around the world, as well as different levels of interest from potential contributors. Indeed, the first section, on Africa, includes only one essay, Ritch Calvin's examination of The Environmen--tal Dominant in Wanuri Kahiu's Pumzi, a 2009 Kenyan film the title of which translates as Breath. Calvin's es--say is typical of most of the book's chapters, as it intro--duces the film first within the context of a national film tradition unfamiliar to most readers and then situates a film or corpus of films in relation to the more familiar body of SF film and/or applies a theoretical approach as--sociated with SF studies. Calvin examines Pumzi, which extrapolates the global problem of water scarcity into a dystopian future, via eco-feminism. Organizationally-speaking, I might have labeled this section Africa and the African Diaspora and included here the only essay in the section on North America, Robyn Citizen's The Role of Black Women in Political and Cultural Transfor--mation in Science Fiction from the US, UK, and Cam--eroon. Citizen contextualizes black women characters in SF film in general, then demonstrates how characters in Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men (2006), Paul W. S. Anderson's Alien vs. Predator (2004), and Jean-Pierre Bekolo's Les Saignantes (2005) transcend stereotypes, becoming heroic subjects. Part II: Asia offers a bit more balance, with three es--says, one each on China, India, and Japan, nations with varying relationships to the production of SF film. Jie Zhang's chapter makes the case for Death Ray on Coral Island as China's First Science Fiction Film, situating this 1980 film within the context of Chinese SF litera--ture and the changing landscape of Chinese politics and various regimes' attitudes to speculative fictions in print or on screen. Jessica Langer and Dominic Alessio survey the genre on the sub-continent, then examine in greater detail the blockbuster success of Endhiran (2011). Taka--yuki Tatsumi's ludic contribution is an outlier in the vol--ume. A previously published work translated by Seth Ja-cobowitz, On the Monstrous Planet, Or How Godzilla Took a Roman Holiday is intellectual parkour, combin--ing memoir, erudition, and dramatic mental leaps from Japanese folklore and the Shinto kami to Melville, Oates, and Bradbury's Fog, to trace Gojira's origins. The largest and most thorough section covers Europe. Derek Johnson reveals how Hammer films negotiated cultural tensions over American cultural imperialism and British national identity in The Importance of Transmediality in British Science Fiction Film in the 1950s. Johnson's transmedia approach calls attention to Hammer's adaptation of television successes to the big screen and mentions the novelization of films. Katie Moylan looks at Science Fiction Interventions in Irish Cinema, situating Irish SF cinema since the 1990s with--in the pre- and post-Celtic Tiger economic boom. As Fritzsche points out in her introduction, parody repre-sents a common thread across world SF cinema; Moylan observes Irish cinema's tendency toward kitsch and irony which crosses over into SF in Neil Jordan's The Butcher Boy (1997), and Martin Duffy's The Boy From Mercury (1996) and The Summer of the Flying Saucer (2008). Moving to the continent, Daniel Tron's Looking for French Science Fiction Cinema traces the genre's prob--lematic status in a nation that associates auteur film--making with its own cultural traditions and rejects genre film as both inferior and un-French. After a brief survey jumping from Melies to the New Wave, Tron demon--strates how Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro negoti--ate a compromise between French-ness and science fictionality. Raffaella Baccolini's overview also reveals an Uncomfortable Relationship Between Science Fic--tion and Italy where the filmic tradition of commedia all'italiana results largely in SF parodies like Fascists on Mars (2006). In Gender and Apocalypse in Eastern Eu--ropean Cinema, Jason Merrill analyzes three Commu--nist-era films from Poland and the former Czechoslova--kia, and Evan Torner looks at Multicultural Whiteness in the East German/ Polish Science Fiction Film Silent Star. Noting that this 1960 film pre-dates Star Trek's multicultural starship crew, Torner critiques the ways in which its tokenism nonetheless reinscribes the Com--munist Bloc's white racial identity. Two essays comprise Part V: South America. Mari--ano Paz looks at Postcolonial Politics and Cultural Hybridity in Argentina's Goodbye Dear Moon (2005), and Alfredo Suppia offers A Short History of Brazilian Science Fiction Film and Its Fight for Survival in a Rar--efied Atmosphere. The volume concludes with perhaps its most significant contribution, Pawel Frelik's chapter Digital Film and Audience, which addresses not just how the digital age has facilitated the rise of world sci--ence fiction film but also how it impacts Hollywood SF filmmaking and reception. This essay has broad applica--tions and would be an excellent support text in an array of courses, as Frelik outlines how digital technologies and new media have changed film production, the struc--ture of film narratives, the length of SF films (promoting the return of the short film), modes of distribution, con--sumption, and reception (out of the cineplex and onto our televisions, computers and hand-held devices), and audience practices, as fans actively and creatively engage with media texts. This volume represents a solid contribution to the de--veloping field of world sf film studies, and Fritzsche's useful Recommended Viewing list offers a starting point for novice viewers. While a number of these films might be found in the usual outlets, however, a signifi--cant obstacle appears for some of the works studied here, which are not distributed internationally and/or subtitled in English. Hopefully, as the number of such studies grows, increased interest in such films will fuel their release in DVD or in on-line viewing formats. SFRA Review, Spring A welcome and overdue addition to the critical discourse surrounding science fiction cinema. This book provides an important point of entry for those academics and students who wish to broaden their understanding of science fiction film as a global phenomenon rather than simply as a Hollywood or Anglophone practice. -- Dr Peter Wright Author InformationSonja Fritzsche is Professor of German Studies at Michigan State University. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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