Global Auteurs: Politics in the Films of Almodóvar, Von Trier, and Winterbottom

Brian Michael Goss

Peter Lang, 2009 - Performing Arts - 252 pages

Global Auteurs employs auteur theory to examine the work of three contemporary and innovative directors: Pedro Almodovar, Lars von Trier, and Michael Winterbottom. With extensive background information on the global film industry, and on auteur theory and its implications for ideological critique, this book's insightful case studies examine both ideologies the filmmakers re-circulate and ideologies that they confront in textual form. The discussion of Pedro Almodovar devotes particular attention to mass mediation, the family, and gender in the corpus of his films, while Lars von Trier's corpus is interpreted as driven by a motif that characterizes all of his films: the «failed idealist. Michael Winterbottom's body of work presents a genre-diverse, post-MTV style concerned with «outsiders and taboo, representation and truth, and human rights. Global Auteurs' sophisticated approach to decoding film is suitable for graduate and undergraduate courses on film, global mass media, and contemporary Europe.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• The International Film Industry: 11
• The Auteur Theory: 39
• It Was Almost Impossible to Dream That: 61
• A Dedication: 81
• Three Films in CloseUp: 103
• Agent ProvocAuteur: 117
• Old WorldNew World: 145
• Lost Without Him: 169
• Real Art: 191
• Rights and Wrongs: 205
• Afterword: 219
• References: 231
• Index: 243

About the author

Brian Michael Goss is Associate Professor in the Department of English and Communication at Saint Louis University in Madrid, Spain. He has a Ph.D. from the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois. His work has been published in numerous journals including the Journal of Communication Inquiry, Journalism and Communication Monographs, Cultural Studies: A Research Annual, Popular Communication, Journalism Studies, and Southern Review.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Global Auteurs: Politics in the Films of Almodóvar, Von Trier, and Winterbottom; Volume 22 of Global Approaches and Transdisciplinary Perspectives; Volume 22 of Intersections in Communications and Culture, ISSN 1528-610X; Intersections in Communications and Culture: Global Approaches and Transdisciplinary Perspectives
• Author: Brian Michael Goss
• Publisher: Peter Lang, 2009
• ISBN: 1433101343, 9781433101342
• Length: 252 pages
• Subjects: Performing Arts / Film & Video / General