Table of Contents

Introduction: Theoretical framework, debates and historical periodisation
Chapter 1: Establishing the Cinematic Gaze: 1905-1945
Chapter 2: Searching for a Visual Metaphor: 1945-1970
Chapter 3: The Formalist Moment: The Inward Gaze: 1971-1995
Chapter 4: The Polyphony of the Decentered Gaze: The Other as a Cultural Hero: 1995-2010
Chapter 5: Epilogue
Appendix 1: Music Scores in Greek Movies
Appendix 2: On Smoking in Greek Movies
Appendix 3: Superstars in Greek Cinema

Promotional Information

The book is a detailed historical survey of Greek cinema from its very beginning (1905) until today (2010).

About the Author

Vrasidas Karalis is Associate Professor in Modern Greek Studies at the University of Sydney. He has published extensively on Greek culture, history and art. He is the editor of the Journal of Modern Greek Studies (Australia and New Zealand). In the area of film studies he has published on Theo Angelopoulos, Sergei Eisenstein and Alfred Hitchcock.

Reviews

"Karalis has well captured the complexity and diversity of Greek cinema from its origins to the present with a strong sense of its relationship to Greek politics, culture and history." -- Dr. Andrew Horton, The Jeanne H Smith Professor of Film & Media Studies at The University of Oklahoma, and author of 25 books including The Films of Theo Angelopoulos (Princeton University Press, 2nd edition, 1999) and award winning screenplays including Brad Pitt's first feature film The Dark Side of the Sun

"This volume is the long-awaited and sorely-needed first history of Greek cinema available in the English-language. Particularly impressive are the insights, sources, data, and comprehensiveness provided by Varsidas Karalis regarding the first 80 years of Greek cinema." --Dan Georgakas, Consulting editor of Cineaste and Co-editor of the Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora

"Vrasidas Karalis' book is a majestic and sublime narrative written with passion and pathos from an «iconoclast» scholar, an «outsider», like the cinema itself is an obsessive one. Its panoramic glances and detailed trivialities represent the author's eyewitness autobiography, when his own life is totally recreated by the reality of pictures. This book is also a cine-catharsis in understanding the Modern Greek society as currently projected in the international «screens», like a cinematographic drama. Read it and you are going to understand why today only the Greek Cinema will «save» the Greek Nation..." --Michael Tsianikas, Professor of Modern Greek, Flinders University, Australia

A History of Greek Cinema is a long-anticipated book in the area of Greek film studies, which fills a significant void…an ambitious publication, which would be warmly welcomed by film scholars as an essential and indepensable reading on Greek film studies. It could also serve as a valuable textbook for film students, as it comprises a fundamental and promising work, which would further enrich international literature on the field of Greek film studies.
*Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television*