Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1. Silent revolutionaries Chapter 2. Agents of suspense Chapter 3. Symbols of resistance Chapter 4. Epic freedom fighters Chapter 5. Newsreel guerrillas Chapter 6. Docu-death squads Chapter 7. Schlock and awe Chapter 8. Avant-garde narcissists Chapter 9. Serial killers Chapter 10. Bollywood’s communalists Chapter 11. Biopics for peace Chapter 12. Networked jihadists Chapter 13. Suicide victims in close-up Chapter 14. YouTube monsters Conclusion Bibliography Filmography
The first history of cinema's treatment of terrorism from the birth of film to today.
Tony Shaw is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. He is an internationally-recognized expert in the fields of history, film and propaganda.
A highly readable and informative volume ... Cinematic Terror hence
represents not only a stimulating read for film scholars and
experts of cultural history and terrorism, but its practical
subdivision into fourteen chapters, each dealing with an individual
film and a sociohistorical context, also makes it useful teaching
material.
*Alphaville*
Cinematic Terror sets out the main contours of portrayals of
terrorism in the cinema, and delves deeply into the complex
relationship between terrorism, filmmaking, and public opinion.
*Cineaste*
Terrorism is central to the international politics of our age. The
mass media are central to terrorism. Given these two facts it is
surprising that scholars have failed to delve deep into the
treatment of terrorism by the most potent mass media of the past
century: the cinema. Until now, that is. In this path-breaking book
Tony Shaw opens the history of the representation of terrorism in
global feature film. Shaw moves deftly across time, geographical
space and genre with a series of well-chosen and flawlessly
executed case studies. The films considered range from masterpieces
by some of the greatest directors of all time, including Alfred
Hitchcock himself, to crude exploitation flicks by way of
blockbusters, epics, art house and even Bollywood. With meticulous
research, unfailing insight and scrupulous balance and objectivity
Shaw is an eloquent and insightful guide to this important subject.
Seasoned scholars, students of film and security issues and general
readers alike will find much to compel attention and provoke
further thought in this important book.
*Nicholas J. Cull, Professor of Public Diplomacy, Annenberg School
for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern
California, USA*
An excellent account of the long history of terrorism as depicted
on film—a major contribution to the field. Tony Shaw does a fine
job not merely in introducing and scrutinizing the discussed
movies, but in placing those movies and similar ones, their
creators, their supporters, their opponents, and their audiences
into the political, sociological, and cultural domestic and/or
global contexts of their respective time periods. Most striking is
the extent to which cinematic terrorism has related at all times to
real life violence of this sort and, taken together, has provided
more diverse and compelling portrayals of terrorists, their
grievances, and their motives than one would find over time in news
media reports.
*Brigitte Nacos, Journalist, Author, and Adjunct Professor
Political Science, Columbia University, USA*
Tony Shaw has produced an important and ground-breaking study of
how cinema has represented international terrorism from the start
of the twentieth century to the present. What particularly stands
out about this excellent book is the breadth of its coverage and
the historical rigour that Shaw brings to his subject. Cinematic
Terror is both a highly original piece of film-historical
scholarship and a very timely work that has relevance to the world
today.
*James Chapman, Professor of Film Studies, University of Leicester,
UK, and editor of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and
Television*
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