Amanda J Field: 6 books

In the 1930s, British film producers and critics championed the idea of ‘quality’ pictures - thoughtful, intelligent films that would project a particular and positive view of Britain. The result was to drive a wedge between ‘national’ cinema (which reflected middle-class values) and ‘popular’...

Alone in the Crowd discusses the identity of nineteenth-century Paris, one of the most widely imaged cities in the modern world, whose most enduring attribute is that of a city of spectacle - a city of the pleasure of looking and being looked at simultaneously. Did Haussmann’s re-figuring of the city,...

A company’s visual identity - as it appears in everything from business stationery and brochures, to product packaging and websites - is central to a company’s impact on the market. It’s the first impression a prospective customer gets: but for many businesses, design is seen as a ‘necessary...

Does Laura Mulvey’s theory, that only women can be the object of the erotic gaze in cinema, still hold true if films that lie beyond mainstream Hollywood are examined? Through close analysis of the 1937 French film Pépé-le-Moko, this paper examines those aspects of the filmmakers’ craft which influence...

Tino Balio, in his book The American Film Industry, said that the Production Code meant that American films could not deal with political or social issues ‘in an honest and truthful fashion’. This incisive essay tests out the legitimacy of Balio’s claims, using The Lost Weekend (directed by Billy...

This fascinating book explores the way that Sherlock Holmes has been appropriated by British businesses to advertise everything from carpets and tyres, to honey and whisky. Somerset Maugham believed that Holmes had survived so long in the public imagination because Arthur Conan Doyle had hammered the...