Men's Cinema: Masculinity and Mise-en-Scene in Hollywood

by Stella Bruzzi

Overview

Cinema is not only an intellectual or cerebral experience, especially when we are talking about popular movies. This is a book about one aspect of how cinema makes us feel as well as think. Although all these aspects are intertwined, Men's Cinema is about identification as well as analysis, about mise-en-scene alongside representation and narrative . It reflects on how we as spectators are invited to understand, desire or identify with Hollywood's vision of men and masculinity via mise-en-scene , from the classical era to the present day. It shows how Hollywood has built up and refined the 'language' of 'men's cinema' via a series of recurrent, refined tropes that evoke masculinity, from a posse of men walking towards the camera to the ecstatically fast editing of the classic action sequence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780748676156
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	09/23/2013
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Stella Bruzzi is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick.

Table of Contents

Introduction; Chapter One: How mise-en-scène tells the man’s story; Chapter Two: Towards a Masculine Aesthetic; Chapter Three: Men’s Cinema.

What People are Saying About This

Men's Cinema looks at familiar movies in surprising new ways. By paying close attention both to gender theory and to intricacies of film form, Stella Bruzzi shows us that male-centered films, from The Wild Bunch to Inception, provide more nuanced, and less oppressive, images of masculinity than is commonly suspected.

Charles Barr

This book has an enormously attractive drive and fluency, carrying through a ground-breaking intervention in debates about basic gendering issues through a new kind of close attention to issues of aesthetics and mise-en-scene. The great thing is the way the prose itself operates in comparable ways to the ‘men’s cinema’ forms of mise-en-scene that are being identified and analysed.

Steven Shaviro

Men's Cinema looks at familiar movies in surprising new ways. By paying close attention both to gender theory and to intricacies of film form, Stella Bruzzi shows us that male-centered films, from The Wild Bunch to Inception, provide more nuanced, and less oppressive, images of masculinity than is commonly suspected.

Editorial Reviews

"Stella Bruzzi's new book makes a welcome intervention in the fields of film and gender studies. Skillfully building upon classic works on the construction of male identity on screen, she nevertheless provides a completely new focus on the topic, offering a valuable addition to existing scholarship on this most crucial issue." — Elisabetta Girelli, Scottish Journal of Performance

"This book is unique in its portrayal of masculinity in film by not only focusing on the construction of masculinity in film, but also by addressing the mise-en-scène in films that depict male characters. The text's strengths are in its strong theoretical analysis, the concrete examples of scenes from a variety of different films and time periods, and the discussions of the stylistic approaches different filmmakers have used to portray the male aesthetic. The interdisciplinary nature of Bruzzi's book makes it suitable for many social science disciplines, including gender and sexuality, media studies, sociology, cultural studies, and masculinity." — Heather R. Rodriguez, The Journal of Popular Culture

"Bruzzi deftly interweaves sociological and psychoanalytic theories of gender, desire and identification with vivid close readings of the aesthetic tropes and stylistic effects that define male-centred genre films to evaluate how images of masculinity are conveyed in classic and contemporary cinema...This is a lucid, highly enjoyable book that will undoubtedly stimulate further interesting research on the relationship between gender, aesthetics and spectatorship." — Ian Murphy, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media

From the Publisher

This book is unique in its portrayal of masculinity in film by not only focusing on the construction of masculinity in film, but also by addressing the mise-en-scène in films that depict male characters. The text’s strengths are in its strong theoretical analysis, the concrete examples of scenes from a variety of different films and time periods, and the discussions of the stylistic approaches different filmmakers have used to portray the male aesthetic. The interdisciplinary nature of Bruzzi’s book makes it suitable for many social science disciplines, including gender and sexuality, media studies, sociology, cultural studies, and masculinity.'

The Journal of Popular Culture - Heather R. Rodriguez

Men's Cinema looks at familiar movies in surprising new ways. By paying close attention both to gender theory and to intricacies of film form, Stella Bruzzi shows us that male-centered films, from The Wild Bunch to Inception, provide more nuanced, and less oppressive, images of masculinity than is commonly suspected.

Steven Shaviro

Stella Bruzzi’s new book makes a welcome intervention in the fields of film and gender studies. Skillfully building upon classic works on the construction of male identity on screen, she nevertheless provides a completely new focus on the topic, offering a valuable addition to existing scholarship on this most crucial issue.

Scottish Journal of Performance, Volume 1, Issue 2 - Elisabetta Girelli

This book has an enormously attractive drive and fluency, carrying through a ground-breaking intervention in debates about basic gendering issues through a new kind of close attention to issues of aesthetics and mise-en-scene. The great thing is the way the prose itself operates in comparable ways to the ‘men’s cinema’ forms of mise-en-scene that are being identified and analysed.

Charles Barr

Bruzzi deftly interweaves sociological and psychoanalytic theories of gender, desire and identification with vivid close readings of the aesthetic tropes and stylistic effects that define male-centred genre films to evaluate how images of masculinity are conveyed in classic and contemporary cinema… This is a lucid, highly enjoyable book that will undoubtedly stimulate further interesting research on the relationship between gender, aesthetics and spectatorship.'

Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media - Ian Murphy