From Publishers Weekly
A history professor at Princeton University, Natalie Zemon Davis (The Return of Martin Guerre; Women on the Margins) is also a seasoned critic of historical film. With Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision, she discusses how movies represent history differently than books do. Can narrative films achieve the accuracy and authenticity that writers can? "Can there be lively cinematic equivalents to what prose histories try to accomplish in prefaces, bibliographies, and notes and through their modifying and qualifying words 'perhaps,' 'maybe,' and 'we are uncertain about'?" In order to answer these questions, Davis looks at a handful of films that have attempted to capture themes of slavery, struggle and rebellion (Spartacus, Burn!, The Last Supper, Amistad and Beloved) and analyzes the devices they've used to convey history, as they understand and wish to express it. It is her hope that "with patience, imagination, and experimentation, historical narration through film could become both more dramatic and more faithful to the sources from the past." (Harvard Univ., $22.95 176p ISBN 0-674-00444-2; Sept.) Given that Shakespeare is one of the world's most famous interpreters of history, it seems fitting that the 14 academics whose essays form Shakespeare, Film, Fin de Si?cle believe that the recent surge of Shakespearean films (Shakespeare in Love, Hamlet, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet) reflects modern man's association of millennium-sized issues with the Bard himself. Edited by Mark Thornton Burnett and Ramona Wray (respectively, a reader and a lecturer in English at Queen's University of Belfast), the volume tackles such topics as advancing technology, families at risk and cultural intolerance. Included among the provocative pieces is a gem of an interview with Kenneth Branagh. (St. Martin's, $42 272p ISBN 0-312-23148-2; Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-A visit to 21 famous fic-tional places where some of television's most-loved characters reside. From animated series like The Flintstones and The Simpsons to family series like Petticoat Junction and The Bob Newhart Show, from science-fiction cult-favorite Dark Shadows to soap operas such as Peyton Place and General Hospital, Tropiano takes readers on a nostalgic guided tour. The book is comprehensive and includes photographs, trivia, cast and crew credits, episode synopses, Web sites, and a few of the shows' locales. This is a fun, easy read for avid fans of sitcoms and soap operas, most of which are being shown on cable, if not on network TV. A wonderful companion for confirmed couch potatoes.-ayo dayo, Chinn Park Regional Library, Prince William,
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
