Sam B. Girgus - The Films of Woody Allen (2000).pdf - USA - gorylisko

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The Films of Woody Allen

Second Edition

The Films of Woody Allen is the ﬁrst full-length work to examine the di-

rector as a serious ﬁlmmaker and artist. Sam Girgus argues that Allen has

consistently been on the cutting edge of contemporary critical and cultural

consciousness, challenging our notions of authorship, narrative, perspective,

character, theme, ideology, gender, and sexuality. This revised and updated

edition includes two new chapters that examine Allen’s work since 1992.

Girgus argues that the scandal surrounding Allen’s personal life in the early

1990s has altered his image in ways that reposition moral consciousness in

his work. The union between Allen’s public and private selves that created

a special aura about him remains intact despite the director’s concerted ef-

fort to separate his private life from his screen image. Allen now assumes

a postmodern moral relativism and sensual realism that differ profoundly

from the moral sensibility of his earlier work.

Sam B. Girgus is professor of English at Vanderbilt University. A recipient

of a Rockefeller Fellowship and other scholarly teaching awards, he is the

author of Hollywood Renaissance: The Cinema of Democracy in the Era

of Ford, Capra, and Kazan; Desire and the Political Unconscious; The New

Covenant: Jewish Writers and the American Idea ; and most recently, America

on Film: Modernism, Documentary, and a Changing America .

CAMBRIDGE FILM CLASSICS

General Editor: Ray Carney, Boston University

The Cambridge Film Classics series provides a forum for revisionist studies of the

classic works of the cinematic canon from the perspective of the new Auterism,

which recognizes that ﬁlms emerge from a complex interaction of bureaucratic, tech-

nological, intellectual, cultural, and personal forces. The series consists of concise,

cutting-edge reassessments of the canonical works of ﬁlm study, written by innova-

tive scholars and critics. Each volume provides a general introduction to the life and

work of a particular director, followed by critical essays of several of the director’s

most important ﬁlms.

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Sam B. Girgus - The Films of Woody Allen (2000).pdf