The Epic Film in World Culture [Hardcover]

With the recent release of spectacular blockbuster films from Gladiatorto The Lord of the Ringstrilogy, the epic has once again become a major form in contemporary cinema. This new volume in the AFI Film Readers series explores the rebirth of the epic film genre in the contemporary period, a period marked by heightened and conflicting appeals to national, ethnic, and religious belonging.The orginal essays in this volume explore the tension between the evolving global context of film production and reception and the particular provenance of the epic as an expression of national mythology and aspirations, challenging our understanding of epics produced in the present as well as our perception of epic films from the past. The contributors will explore new critical approaches to contemporary as well as older epic films, drawing on ideas from cultural studies, historiography, classics, and film studies.

Introduction

Section 1: Spectacle

Chapter 1: Monica Silveira Cyrino, 'This is Sparta!' The Reinvention of the Epic in Zach Snyder's 300.

Chapter 2: Kirsten Thompson, 'Philip Never Saw Babylon:' 360 Degree Vision and the Historical Epic in the Digital Era.

Chapter 3: Leon Hunt, Heroic Chivalry, Heroic Sacrifice: 'Martial Arthouse' as Epic Cinema.

Chapter 4: Robert Burgoyne, Bare Life and Sovereignty in Gladiator.

Section 2: Center and Periphery

Chapter 5: Dina Iordanova, 'Rise of the Rest:' Globalizing Epic Cinema.

Chapter 6: Bettina Bildhauer, Signs of the Times: The Semiotics of Time and Event in Sirk's Sign of the Pagan.

Chapter 7: Tom Conley, The Fall of the Roml)