"Few books of film criticism in the past twenty-five years have been so enjoyable or instructive... [Perez] has excellent things to say about authorship, about documentaries, about popular genres, about cinematic point of view and narrative technique, about actors, and above all about camera style... He never condescends to his audience or sacrifices his intellectual clarity, and most importantly he makes us want to look once more at the remarkable pictures he discusses. The virtues of his writing are quite rare." -- Review by James Naremore (Cineaste Magazine)

Comprehensive, authoritative, and unique, The Oxford Guide to Film Studies is the up-to-date critical volume on the theories, debates, and approaches to the study of film. A host of international experts provide an overview of the main disciplinary approaches to film studies, an explanation of the main concepts and methods involved in film analysis, a survey of the main issues and debates in the study of film, and critical discussion of key areas. The Guide features: comprehensive coverage suitable for any course on cinema or film studies organized into three sections: Approaches; Hollywood and the World; World Cinema an emphasis throughout on critical concepts, methods, and debates specially commissioned chapters on such varied topics as film music, the Hollywood Star System, and the idea of national cinema coverage dedicated to important new areas in film studies: gay and lesbian criticism, postcolonial theory, audience studies, post-classical Hollywood cinema, and cultural studies chapters discussing exciting new developments in classical topics, such as Early Hollywood Cinema, Film History, and the avant-garde illustrated throughout, and complete with readings designed to demonstrate the variety of theoretical approaches, chapter headings and summaries, guides to further reading, and highlight quotes With its uniquely comprehensive coverage, The Oxford Guide to Film Studies is an indispensable aide and reference source for the student of film and media, and anyone interested in the study of cinema.

Stanley Kubrick had a great talent for creating memorable images-such as his famous jump cut from a bone tossed into the prehistoric sky to a spaceship orbiting the earth in 2001. Like the composer of a great symphony, Kubrick also had the ability to draw his memorable moments into a lyrical whole. Balancing harmony with discord, he kept viewers on edge by constantly shifting relationships among the dramatic elements in his movies. The results often confounded expectations and provoked controversy, right up through Eyes Wide Shut, the last film of his life. This book is an intensive, scene-by-scene analysis of Kubrick's most mature work-seven meticulously wrought films, from Dr. Strangelove to Eyes Wide Shut. In these films, Kubrick dramatized the complexity and mutability of the human struggle, in settings so diverse that some critics have failed to see the common threads. Rasmussen traces those threads and reveals the always shifting, always memorable, always passionately rendered pattern.