Overview

Examining the significance of women's work in popular film genres, Genre, Authorship and Contemporary Women Filmmakers sheds light on women's contribution to genre cinema through an exploration of filmmakers like Kathryn Bigelow, Diablo Cody, Sofia Coppola and Kelly Reichard. Exploring genres as diverse as horror, the war movie, the Western, the costume biopic and the romantic comedy, the book interrogates questions of authorial subversion, gendered concepts of film authorship and male/female genre divisions, as well as re-evaluating certain genres as a space worthy of feminist criticism. By offering an analysis of the films themselves and the circumstances of production and reception, this book redefines political, theoretical and commercial conceptualisations of women's cinema, and offers new perspectives on how women filmmakers explore the aesthetic and imaginative power of genre.

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9781474425292

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Reviews

Genre, Authorship and Contemporary Women Filmmakers is a challenging, complex and critically intelligent work. It offers new perspectives on the cinema(1)s fraught relationship with women directors and their significant contribution to popular genre cinema from the war and horror film to the western and biopic. An important addition to feminist film theory, Paszkiewicz's book is essential reading for anyone interested in the most recent debates around gender, genre and the achievement of women filmmakers. -- Professor Barbara Creed, The University of Melbourne, author of The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis Paszkiewicz's knowledge, both of genres and of the scholarly literature on the subject, is encyclopedic, and one would say that she has mastered her own particular genre-the academic theoretical essay. -- W. A. Vincent, Michigan State University, CHOICE

Genre, Authorship and Contemporary Women Filmmakers is a challenging, complex and critically intelligent work. It offers new perspectives on the cinema¹s fraught relationship with women directors and their significant contribution to popular genre cinema from the war and horror film to the western and biopic. An important addition to feminist film theory, Paszkiewicz's book is essential reading for anyone interested in the most recent debates around gender, genre and the achievement of women filmmakers.'--Professor Barbara Creed, The University of Melbourne, author of The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis Interested in the relationship been genre and gender, Paszkiewicz proposes that genre is both constricting and liberating for female filmmakers. She examines recent films directed by female auteurs in genres considered ""male"" Jennifer's Body (2009), a horror film directed by Karyn Kusama; The Hurt Locker (2008), a war film by Kathryn Bigelow; Meek's Cutoff (2010), a western by Kelly Reichardt; Marie Antoinette (2006), a costume drama by Sofia Coppola; and The Intern (2015), a romantic comedy by Nancy Meyers. Each of these women demonstrates not only an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre in which she is working but also a willingness to play with and on the conventions of the genre, imbuing it with a feminine perspective. Paszkiewicz's own knowledge, both of genres and of the scholarly literature on the subject, is equally encyclopedic, and one would say that she has mastered her own particular genre--the academic theoretical essay.'--W. A. Vincent, Michigan State University ""CHOICE"" Katarzyna Paszkiewicz 's book on Genre, Authorship and Contemporary Women Filmmakers is a meticulously researched and detailed analysis of women's cinema, a study field that so far has hardly received booklength attention by film and cultural critics. The writer compellingly explores the strategies of women auteurs who create genre films that deviate from what are stereotypically defined as ""women's films"". Paszkiewicz contextualizes these films in a wide array of aesthetic, political, theoretical and commercial issues and displays how a dialogical and interactive relationship is also possible between feminist film scholars and women filmmakers.--Honorable Mention ""Esse Book Awards 2020""

"""Genre, Authorship and Contemporary Women Filmmakers is a challenging, complex and critically intelligent work. It offers new perspectives on the cinema�s fraught relationship with women directors and their significant contribution to popular genre cinema from the war and horror film to the western and biopic. An important addition to feminist film theory, Paszkiewicz's book is essential reading for anyone interested in the most recent debates around gender, genre and the achievement of women filmmakers."" -- Professor Barbara Creed, The University of Melbourne, author of The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis ""Paszkiewicz's knowledge, both of genres and of the scholarly literature on the subject, is encyclopedic, and one would say that she has mastered her own particular genre-the academic theoretical essay."" -- W. A. Vincent, Michigan State University, CHOICE"

Genre, Authorship and Contemporary Women Filmmakers is a challenging, complex and critically intelligent work. It offers new perspectives on the cinema s fraught relationship with women directors and their significant contribution to popular genre cinema from the war and horror film to the western and biopic. An important addition to feminist film theory, Paszkiewicz's book is essential reading for anyone interested in the most recent debates around gender, genre and the achievement of women filmmakers. -- Professor Barbara Creed, The University of Melbourne, author of The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis Paszkiewicz's knowledge, both of genres and of the scholarly literature on the subject, is encyclopedic, and one would say that she has mastered her own particular genre-the academic theoretical essay. -- W. A. Vincent, Michigan State University, CHOICE

Author Information

Katarzyna Paszkiewicz lectures in the Department of Modern Languages and English Studies at the University of Barcelona. Her research focuses on film genres and women’s cinema in the USA and Spain. She has published book chapters and journal articles on Kathryn Bigelow, Sofia Coppola, Nancy Meyers, Icíar Bollaín and Isabel Coixet. Most recently she has co-edited with Mary Harrod the forthcoming Women Do Genre in Film and Television (Routledge, 2018).

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