Pamela Church Gibson, The London Institute
An invaluable addition to the literature
Carrie Tarr, University of Kingston-on-Thames
Engages with complex ideas in a beautifully written and tightly focused manner.
Book Description
Women’s Cinema: The Contested Screen provides an introduction to critical debates around women’s filmmaking and relates those debates to a variety of cinematic practices. Taking her cue from the ground-breaking theories of Claire Johnston and the critical tradition she inspired, Alison Butler argues that women’s cinema is a minor cinema which exists inside other cinemas, inflecting and contesting the codes and systems of the major cinematic traditions from within. Using canonical directors and less established names as examples, ranging from Chantal Akerman to Moufida Tlatli, the book argues that women’s cinema is unified in spite of its diversity by the ways in which it re-works cinematic conventions.
About the Author
Alison Butler is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Reading, UK.
