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Hollywood Puzzle Films

Edited by Warren Buckland

To Be Published April 1st 2014 by Routledge – 256 pages

Series: AFI Film Readers

Purchasing Options:

  • Paperback: $37.95
    978-0-415-62246-2
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  • Hardback: $150.00
    978-0-415-62245-5
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Description

From Inception to The Lake House, moviegoers are increasingly flocking to narratologically complex puzzle films. These puzzle movies borrow techniques--like blurred or fragmented spatio-temporal reality, time loops, unstable characters with split identities or unreliable narrators, and mind games--more commonly attributed to art cinema and independent films. In the tradition of other AFI book, the pieces in Hollywood Puzzle Films examine the convergence of puzzle film techniques with contemporary Hollywood dramas and blockbusters. Looking at movies like Source Code, The Butterfly Effect, Donnie Darko, and others,contributors consider the implications of Hollywood's new movie mind games.

Contents

Entry

Author Bio

Warren Buckland has spent twenty years researching film theory and contemporary Hollywood cinema. He is author/editor of nine books:

  • (ed., with Edward Branigan), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory (Routledge, 2013)
  • Film Theory: Rational Reconstructions (Routledge, 2012)
  • (ed.) Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies (Routledge, 2009)

  • (ed.) Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009);
  • Directed by Steven Spielberg: Poetics of the Contemporary Hollywood Blockbuster (Continuum, 2006);
  • Studying Contemporary American Film: A Guide to Movie Analysis (with Thomas Elsaesser) (Arnold, 2002);
  • The Cognitive Semiotics of Film (Cambridge University Press, 2000);
  • Film Studies (McGraw-Hill, 1998; fourth edition, 2010); and
  • (ed.) The Film Spectator (Amsterdam University Press, 1995).

He has published over 35 essays in journals and anthologies, and also edits the journal the New Review of Film and Television Studies (Routledge).

Name: Hollywood Puzzle Films (Paperback)Routledge 
Description: Edited by Warren Buckland. From Inception to The Lake House, moviegoers are increasingly flocking to narratologically complex puzzle films. These puzzle movies borrow techniques--like blurred or fragmented spatio-temporal reality, time loops, unstable characters with split...
Categories: Hollywood, Contemporary Cinema, Cultural Theory, Visual Culture