Exploring Film Through Bad Cinema

This book offers an overview of the practice of film analysis through a specific focus on the concept of 'bad' cinema within a series of broad cultural and historical contexts. It will appeal to researchers and scholars in Film Studies as well as cognate disciplines such as Screen Studies, Visual Studies, and Cultural Studies.

List of contents

1. Introduction: Creatures of the Screen
2. Early Film Form, Narrative, and the Cinema of Attractions
3. Cult, Pleasure, and Nostalgia: Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and the Triumph of Irony
4. "Paging Dr. Freud!" Theorizing John Boorman's Zardoz
5. The World's Worst Director? Ed Wood and Auteur Theory
6. Nudie Cuties and Radical Roughies: Doris Wishman's World of Exploitation
7. Reel Nasty: The Night Porter, The Gestapo's Last Orgy, and Sadiconazista Cinema of the 1970s
8. She Found It at the Movies: Pauline Kael and the Mystery of the Disappearing Film Critic
9. When the Blockbuster Goes Bad: Cleopatra's Epic Excess and the Italian Peplum
10. The Worst Masterpiece Ever Made: Heaven's Gate and The New Hollywood
11. Where Did It All Go Right?
Index

About the author

David C. Wall is Professor of Film and Visual Studies at Utah State University.

Product details

• Authors: David C. (Utah State University Wall, Wall David C.
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 08.08.2025
• EAN: 9781032655246
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3265524-6
• No. of pages: 194
• Series: Routledge Advances in Film Studies
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Photography, film, video, TV; Social sciences, law, business > Media, communication > Media science; History, Media Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, Humanities, Film Theory & Criticism, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / Reference, Film history, theory or criticism