Description
Cinema Behind Bars
Book Summary
A collective work that explores the representation of incarceration in cinema through ten essays written from complementary perspectives. The authors analyze how the seventh art has addressed different spheres of seclusion, from common prisons and reformatories to psychiatric wards, convents, and concentration camps. The reader will find a rigorous study of the audiovisual motifs and character typologies that define this film genre.
What is it about?
This collective book brings together ten specialists who examine the representation of confinement on the big screen. Each author addresses a different carceral setting, analyzing how cinema has constructed narratives around the deprivation of liberty. The work delves into recurring primary audiovisual motifs, such as penitentiary architecture, rituals of imprisonment, and power dynamics, as well as the character archetypes that populate these stories. From common prisoners to those committed to psychiatric institutions, and including inmates in convents or prisoners in concentration camps, the text offers an exhaustive tour of the multiple facets of the prison genre in film.
Main Topics
- Cinematic representation of common prison and its social dynamics
- The reformatory as a space for re-education and control in film
- The psychiatric institution and the boundary between mental health and seclusion
- The convent as a space of voluntary and forced seclusion
- Concentration camps in audiovisual narrative
- Character archetypes in prison cinema
- Visual motifs and narrative resources of the penitentiary genre
Who is it recommended for?
Students and professionals of cinema, audiovisual communication, and cultural studies interested in the analysis of film genres. It will also be of great use to researchers in sociology, criminology, and history working on the representation of seclusion in art. Readers passionate about prison films who desire an academic and multidisciplinary approach to the genre.
What this book contributes
- A panoramic and comparative view of different spaces of seclusion in cinema
- Detailed analysis of the narrative and visual codes of the prison genre
- Multiple perspectives from ten specialists that enrich the understanding of the subject
- Conceptual tools for the critical analysis of films about incarceration
Technical Specifications
- Author: José Francisco Montero and José Antonio Planes
- Publisher: Sans Soleil Ediciones
- Language: Spanish
- Subject: Arts, Cinema, Television and Radio, Movies, Film Theory and Criticism, Cinema: Styles and Genres, Literary Essays, Prisons
- Collection: Constellatio
- Binding: Paperback
- Edition date: June 2017
- Number of pages: 468
- Weight: 667 g
Editorial Assessment
A reference work for those who wish to understand how cinema has constructed the imagery of confinement. The diversity of approaches and the breadth of carceral settings covered make this book a valuable resource for both specialists and film enthusiasts seeking a deep and well-documented analysis of the genre.