Film And The Critical Eye

Looking at Movies, Third Edition Revise

Based on the highly successful course at the School of Visual Arts developed by the author, this book provides a comprehensive approach to the critical understanding of photography through an in-depth discussion of fifteen photographs and their contexts – historical, generic, biographical and aesthetic. This book presents an intensive course in looking at photographs, open to undergraduates and general audiences alike. Rexer argues that by concentrating on fifteen carefully chosen works it is possible to understand the history, development and contemporary situation of photography. Looking to images by photographers such as Roland Fischer, Nancy Rexroth and Ernest Cole, The Critical Eye is the only book to address the totality of issues involved in photography, from authorial self-consciousness to the role of the audience. Its subjects are not limited to art photography but include vernacular images, commercial genres and anthropology. With every chapter it seeks to link the history of photography to current practice. This highly illustrated and beautiful book provides a much-needed introduction to image production.

Grace Coddington, at age 70, has been the Creative Director of Vogue magazine for the past 20 years. Her candour, her irascibility, her commitment to her work, and her always fresh and original take on fashion has made her, after Anna Wintour, the most powerful person in fashion. Acquired after an intense auction among every major publisher, this woman who became an unwilling celebrity captured the hearts of everyone when she was revealed in the movie as the creative force behind the throne at Vogue. Having grown up on a backwater island in Wales, she came to London just in time to be discovered as a dazzling model by the famous Norman Parkinson, then went on to shape the pages at Vogue for 19 years where she worked as Creative Director with many luminaries including the young Wintour. Lured by Calvin Klein to run his New York operation she then jumped back to American Vogue when Wintour returned to America in 2003. She has been there ever since.

Existing critical traditions fail to fully account for the impact of Austrian director, and 2009 Cannes Palm d'Or winner, Michael Haneke's films, situated as they are between intellectual projects and popular entertainments. In this first English-language introduction to, and critical analysis of, his work, each of Haneke's eight feature films are considered in detail. Particular attention is given to what the author terms Michael Haneke's 'ethical cinema' and the unique impact of these films upon their audiences. Drawing on the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Stanley Cavell, Catherine Wheatley, introduces a new way of marrying film and moral philosophy, which explicitly examines the ethics of the film viewing experience. Haneke's films offer the viewer great freedom whilst simultaneously imposing a considerable burden of responsibility. How Haneke achieves this break with more conventional spectatorship models, and what its far-reaching implications are for film theory in general, constitute the principal subject of this book.