As part of Mexico's ongoing Revolution, 'the ideological vision of society and culture offered/accepted by the State,' the cultural reelaboration of Mexicanness also involved a cultural redefinition of gender. This chapter discusses Emilio Fernandez's Enamorada deals with the Revolution's renegotiation of gender identity. It argues that Fernandez's and the Revolution's explicit gender discourses of 'lo macho' and female submission are often undermined by the melodramatic mise-en-scène and borrowings from the Hollywood screwball comedy. The chapter attempts to read against a blurring between the accepted model of Revolutionary masculinity and a hypermasculine filmmaker if either actually exists. It explores the eliding of Fernández's high voice in biographical auteurist accounts suggests a repression of 'other,' less 'virile' readings of his work. The chapter shows there is room for other readings of Enamorada than Mexican cultural nationalism and the basic Fernández mythology allow for - i.e., in this case a feminist reading.

This chapter questions the reproduction of motifs of cultural nationalism in relation to the production of the hembra (female), an exaggeratedly submissive and abnegated female identity, and femininity in conventional readings of Salón México, Las abandonadas and Víctimas del pecado. It looks at how melodrama offers a space for subversive pleasure within an otherwise restrictive moral context that challenges gender ideology as it relates to racial identity. The chapter seeks to destabilize the rigid melodramatic, social, racial and gender paradigms upon which readings of the three films are based. It attempts to show how the unacceptable 'other' (the liberated sexuality of the lone female dancer) is not necessarily the opposite but in fact an integral part of the image of the nation. The three films are less morally dichotomous in their representation of Mexican women and the struggle for modernity in the 1940s than much of conventional scholarship allows for.

This chapter, through Emilio Fernández' Río Escondido, questions a key element within the post-Revolution redefinition of Mexico: necessary consonance of Fernández' films with conservative, Government ideology. Specifically, it explores the tensions between Government discourses of progress and modernity and Río Escondido's representation of Mexico. At the same time, the chapter takes issue with the idea that this film (along with all Fernández's films) represents an 'antimodernist utopia' antithetical to progress and modernity, and suggests instead that it is firmly rooted in the contemporary moment (and problems) of its production. Although, Río Escondido seemingly furthers the State's claim to be Revolutionary by figuring a revolutionary struggle and victory, the chapter finds that the very revolutionary actions the film celebrates are simultaneously disavowed as part of Mexico's contemporary reality.

This chapter explores the relationship between subjects and their spatial situation with reference to Subway and Nikita, with particular emphasis being placed on the two principal protagonists of each film, Fred and Nikita. It examines how Luc Besson exploits the films' settings in revealing the emotional state of the two seemingly equivalent characters, and also explores how space is used as a vehicle for communicating a sense of 'imprisoned freedom' on which each film pivots. The chapter demonstrates the link between physical environment and personal psychology in the construction of gender and identity differs markedly in the two films at issue. To conclude, both Subway and Nikita are set in underground environments, each defined by a sense of 'imprisoned freedom'; but, it demonstrates, the interaction of space and identity differs significantly in the two films.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book charts the development of cinema exhibition and cinema-going in Britain from the first public film screening, the Lumière Brothers' showing of their Cinematographe show at London's Regent Street Polytechnic in February 1896, through to the opening of 30-screen 'megaplexes'. In part the existence of cinema is the result of an array of technological developments going back arguably to the sixteenth century with the camera obscura and encompassing the development of celluloid film and its projection to a large audience. It is also the result of the efforts to create spaces for the public exhibition of moving images; grand spaces which have embraced and reflected the great modernist project of the twentieth century. The book places the development of cinema in a broad social, economic, cultural and political context.

Chapter 3 discusses the stylistic diversity of stained glass in this period, as evident in the international exhibition displays, which demonstrate a varied and eclectic approach to historicism and modernism; two concepts which were not mutually exclusive in this era. Nineteenth-century stained glass was continually associated with, and assessed in relation to historic styles, yet artists simultaneously encountered and adopted new styles including Japonisme and Art Nouveau. Significantly, this chapter also charts the rapid secularisation of the medium and its adaptation to modern settings and contexts, as influenced by and demonstrated at these exhibition environments.

Le Grand bleu is one of the postmodern narratives which is incoherent in its coherence. Le Grand bleu is a self-service where meaning is concerned; everyone takes from it what they want. This chapter presents three approaches to explain the infatuation of millions of cinemagoers and videotape buyers as a result of Le Grand bleu's success. First, the film can be located in what Alois Riegel calls the Kunstwollen of the social and historical context. It is successful because it is the first to encapsulate artistic forms corresponding to the times. Second, the film crystallises socio-cultural specificities, engendering a mirror-effect where some of the more publicly visible social groups can see themselves nar-cissistically. Third, there is another mirror-effect, but outside of the realm of history: the film explores an unusual aspect of human psychology.

In terms of film production, the 1980s has become characterised by a so-called cinema du look and, more specifically, associated with the work of three young filmmakers: Jean-Jacques Beineix, Luc Besson and Leos Carax. Unlike Besson and Carax whose work is neo-baroque from their second film, Beineix began to work in this vein from his first film, Diva, which can be seen as the founding film of the genre. For some critics, Diva, Subway or Mauvais sang have no more cultural value than would an advertisement for pantyhose or a popular TV show. It could be argued that Jules in Diva is a distant alter ego of the director, and that Mayol in Le Grand bleu has more than a few points in common with Besson; but these characters are too fictionalised to be truly autobiographical.

This chapter documents the developments in the 1960s and 1970s which saw the decline of British cinema, and the lessons learnt from the success of American cinema industry. The decline in fortunes of the cinema throughout the 1960s and 1970s took place in the context of dramatic changes in British society. The period is one in which cinema exhibitors sought to distinguish the silver screen from the television screen as a plethora of technological advancements were marketed, such as stereophonic sound and special widescreen formats, notably CinemaScope. The end of the 1970s saw the emergence of the video cassette recorder for the home television as well as the conditions created for the development of a new kind of multi-screen cinema, pioneered in the USA. The development of the shopping centre heralded the introduction of new cinemas and chains that took their aesthetic inspiration from the malls themselves.