(Applause Books). This updated edition of one of the best-selling and comprehensive Broadway reference books; first published in 1985; has been expanded to include many of the most important and memorable productions of the American musical theater; including revivals. Chronologically arranged beginning with The Black Crook in 1866; the seventh edition adds new entries and photos on numerous musicals from recent years; including American Idiot ; Billy Elliot: The Musical ; Hair (revival); Memphis ; Next to Normal ; Rock of Ages ; The Addams Family ; West Side Story (revival); and Fela! Broadway Musicals; Show by Show features a wealth of statistics and inside information; plus critical reception; cast lists; pithy commentary about each show; and numerous detailed indexes that no Broadway fan will want to be without.
#912131 in eBooks 2010-12-01 2010-12-01File Name: B00G958GF6
Review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. An overview of theoretical approaches to film as a reality in its own right; rather than as secondary to the reality it depictsBy NateWhen film theorists talk about the connection between film and reality; they tend to be interested in how well or badly film depicts the reality that exists "out there;" independent of its filmic presentation. They are asking whether film can do a good job of representing reality. Realists argue that what is special about film; and what filmmakers ought to strive for; is its photographic potential to capture and depict aspects of reality just as they are. Others argue that "realism" is an effect; achieved deliberately by means of techniques that hide the artifice of cinema; and thereby dupe the audience into accepting what they see without question. Rushton argues that both camps get it wrong; that both begin with the illegitimate assumption that film is at best a mirror or representation; with a secondary status in relation to the reality it mirrors or represents. Both camps tacitly presume a reality that exists on its own apart from our representations of it and yet to which we have access enough in order to assess directly the adequacy or inferiority of film. As a challenge to this assumption; Rushton seeks here to explore the sense in which film itself is a part of reality; of that reality to which alone we have any kind of access; which means the reality of our shared experience as human beings. He looks at several prominent film theorists whose work hints at ways to conceive film as a reality in its own right; a reality with which to contend on its own terms and not only or primarily in relation to the subject-independent reality that it is supposed to depict.Its an ambitious and important project; even if it remains inconclusive since the author doesnt attempt seriously to work through the contrasts in the approaches he outlines; but rather lets each stand as just another way to think the reality of film. In the end; he argues that what unites them and what he finds fruitful in each approach is not so much a specific thesis or approach; but an attitude; of taking film seriously; of addressing it on its own terms; of treating it as a significant part of the world we live in rather than merely as a method or medium for depicting that world. The studies are generally illuminating; even if he tends not to focus on the work as a whole of the thinkers he addresses but tends rather to emphasize those aspects that show their work to challenge the prevailing dualistic assumptions within film theory and criticism that he finds problematic. Perhaps most helpful is his opening discussion of "political modernism" - a theoretical movement that in the main emphasized the illusory and ideological status of mainstream cinema; and championed avant-garde and "modernist" cinema in which the viewers allegedly passive relation to the cinema was undermined. He argues that at the heart of this movement - which he shows to have a significant continued influence in the field in spite of its overtly waning popularity - is a somewhat naive dualism of illusory appearances or representations and true reality; a dualism that is problematized by the fact that our access to the allegedly true reality is as partial and selective as the cinematic image whose delusive status they seek to undermine.The author looks at Andre Bazin; and argues that his so-called "realism" ought to be understood differently than it is usually taken. The "reality" that interests Bazin is a shared; communal reality. He is not so much interested in films capacity to accurately depict the world as it would exist without us; rather he is interested in films ability to create a communal experience; to reveal what a shared reality is and can be. He argues that Christian Metzs study of the "imaginary signifier" helps to see the status of cinema as neither real nor mere imagination but as the dialectical unity of the real and unreal. Cinema is illusion; but the experience of cinema is one in which we at once recognize its illusory status and disavow this recognition such that the experience of the film can transform the viewers relationship to the real. He considers Stanley Cavell and Gilles Deleuze; and shows that in spite of their sharp differences in approach and ideas; they each treat film as a part of the reality we live in; part of what shapes our experience and engenders self-reflection. He outlines Zizeks radical rejoinder to political modernisms insistence that mainstream film is ideological - with the claim that reality itself; no less than cinema; is inescapably ideological. He concludes with a look at Rancieres argument that cinema manages to bridge the tension between a pre-modern artistic tradition of representation according to rules and a modern "aesthetic regime" committed above all to delivering a certain kind of sensuous experience.The writing is somewhat uneven; reading at times like a polished dissertation that insists on tying every chapter back towards the same point; but more often it offers lucid and illuminating studies of an important theme in relation to a range of significant thinkers working in both philosophical and theoretical traditions of film study. The conclusion of the book offers a somewhat overhasty appreciation and critique of a book that appeared as the present book was being completed; and that raises a related range of concerns (but to this reader at least feels more fully developed) - John Mullarkeys Philosophy and the Moving Image: Refractions of Reality. What is most valuable here (and in Mullarkeys book) is not so much the set of conclusions he draws regarding each thinker; but the question the book as a whole raises; which has the potential to generate a whole range of valuable inquiries in film studies. The book challenges theorists of film to reconsider an emphasis on film as representation; which naturally raises the question how well or badly it represents; and to consider; rather that film and the experience of film is a real and important part of modern life and to ask what it is and what it does and how it is to be understood in its own right.