Kurt Jackson: Painting. Sea. Sky. Light. Land. Cornwall, Robinson Jeremy Mark

Hayao Miyazaki's movies include Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Laputa: Castle In the Sky and My Neighbor Totoro.

Hayao Miyazaki may be the most talented fantasy filmmaker of his generation: not even the finest filmmakers of Hollywood can rival his films when it comes to creating fantasy worlds, and fantastical characters and events. Miyazaki has millions of fans around the world, not least among fellow animators and filmmakers, for whom he is a genius.

What Hayao Miyazaki's films do is to bring you completely into a fantasy world that is instantly recognizable and familiar. It's as if these fantasy realms have always existed - very much like J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth or Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea (both influences on Miyazaki). The visionary and magical elements are fused with the domestic and familial and social elements, so that it seems completely ordinary and believable that, say, flying machines soar overhead which have flapping wings like an insect, or that little white creatures pop up out of trees and make strange clicking noises.

To write one hit animation movie is amazing, to write eleven is remarkable. To write and direct one spectacular animated picture is very impressive, to write and direct eleven features is unheard-of in the world of contemporary commercial animation.

This new study of Hayao Miyazaki considers all of his films and TV shows (and his manga work). It also includes chapters on Studio Ghibli - on fellow director Isao Takahata - Miyazaki's influences - his contemporaries and colleagues - his characters - his movies' relation to Western animation (including the Walt Disney Company) - his unmade films - and his themes and motifs.

The Cinema of Hayao Miyazaki also explores Japanese animation, its production and style, some classics of anime, and digital animation.

Includes quotes by Miyazaki; fans on Miyazaki; and resources.

The second edition has been completely updated and revised. There is a new chapter on The Wind Rises, and Ghibli's latest films, including The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

Fully illustrated. With filmography, bibliography and notes. 664 pages. ISBN 9781861715159.

EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 2: "GODARD BIOGRAPHY"

With Bout du Souffle, Godard produced one of the first, great French New Wave movies, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, and written by, among others, Fran ois Truffaut. Bout du Souffle, with its cool Parisian milieu, its filmic and film noir allusions, handheld camera, direct sound, startling editing and stylish, self-conscious performances from Belmondo and Seberg, established Godard as one of the major voices of postwar cinema, a reputation which Godard built on in subsequent early films such as Le Petit Soldat (1960), Une Femme Est Une Femme (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le M pris (1963), Bande Part (1964), and Une Femme Mari e (1964).

In these films of the early to mid-1960s, Godard established a radical, polemical series of films as film-essays which confronted issues such as late consumer capitalism, prostitution, labour, politics, ideology, gender, marriage, music, popular culture, Hollywood and not forgetting cinema itself.

In the mid-1960s, Godard's films became increasingly political - the sci-fi film Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), Made in U.S.A (1966), Masculine/ F minin (1966), 2 ou 3 Choses Que Je Sais (1966) - until, by 1967-68, the Marxist and Maoist influences permeated Godard's films: Weekend (1967), La Chinoise (1967), La Gai Savoir (1968), and One Plus One (Sympathy For the Devil, 1968). His concern was 'not to make political films, but to make films politically' (my emphasis).

In the 1970s, Godard moved into video and television territory, and worked with Anne-Marie Mi ville on many projects: Ici Et Ailleurs (1974), Num ro Deux (1975), Comment a Va (1976), Six Fois Deux/ Sur Et Sous La Communication (1976), and France/ Tour/ D tour/ Deux/ Enfants (1977-78).

In the late 1970s, Godard made a 'return' to feature filmmaking, with the 'sublime trilogy', Sauve Qui Peut (a.k.a. Every Man For Himself and Slow Motion, 1979), Passion (1982), and Pr nom: Carmen (1983).

Easily his most controversial film, Je Vous Salue Marie (Hail Mary), appeared in 1985; it was followed by D tective (1985), made to help finance the completion of Hail Mary, King Lear (1987), which starred Peter Sellars, Burgess Meredith, Molly Ringwald, Norman Mailer and Woody Allen, Nouvelle Vague (1990), H las Pour Moi (1993), For Ever Mozart (1997), loge de l'Amour (In Praise of Love, 2000) and Notre Musique (2005).

Fully illustrated. Bibliography and notes.

Philip Kindred Dick (1928-1982) was a key figure in 20th century science fiction, famous for embracing drugs and the counter-culture in his work. Dick's fiction includes The Man In the High Castle, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, A Scanner Darkly, The Game Players of Titan, Clan of the Alphane Moon, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Valis, The Divine Invasion, Martian Time-Slip, The Minority Report, and We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. Dick's themes included perception and reality, drugs, state control, global capitalism, surveillance, and paranoia.

Four films are explored here: Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly (in a chapter by Thomas Christie). The other films based on Phil Dick's fiction, which are discussed in the final chapter, include Confessions d'un Barjo (a French movie based on Confessions of a Crap Artist), a Canadian film, Screamers, based on Dick's Second Variety story, Paycheck, directed by John Woo, Next (Lee Tamahori, 2007), based on The Golden Man, and Impostor (Gary Fleder, 2002).

The more recent cycle of Philip Kindred Dick movies began with Minority Report and Impostor in 2002 - Paycheck and Next followed in 2003 and 2007, and The Owl In Daylight, a possible film about Dick, and Radio Free Alemuth (2008). A sequel to Screamers was released in 2009, again shooting in Canada, with Peter Weller starring.

Fully illustrated, with a newly revised text for this edition. Bibliography, filmography and notes. ISBN 971861713568.

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FROM THE FOREWORD

In this comprehensive book, Jeremy Robinson explores the themes of Blade Runner with his usual insight and knowledge of visual and narrative film. Robinson presents a critical and objective outside viewpoint. He tries to be balanced, and to offer criticism as well as praise. It is ultimately important to note that he is writing about art, not the artist, and he admires Ridley Scott as much as I do.

Blade Runner has been analyzed, debated, dissected and discussed extensively over the last 25 years and I hope you find Jeremy Robinson's exploration into Ridley Scott's seminal sci-fi film noir masterpiece to be innovative and glowing with new ideas that stimulate your imagination and jump start your synapses.

This new hardback edition includes many new illustrations. including photographs taken for this new edition. The text has been completely updated.

EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 4:

One of Kurt Jackson's appealing concepts is that the ocean is one of the last true wildernesses left on the planet. It's an idea that I found very interesting when he explained it to me when we first met in St Just. I took it that he meant a spiritual as well as an ecological or natural wilderness. Jackson's art can thus be seen as an art that is the border region between humanity and nature, between culture and nature, as well as literally tackling that area - the coast - which is neither land nor sea.

Note that Kurt Jackson is always facing outwards from the land, and looking towards the ocean, not painting with his back to the sea, and looking towards the land (and notice that the many boats and ships and helicopters and such in this area are left out of the paintings, too).

So Jackson's Porth series, about Priest Cove, and all of his sea paintings, are very important in his art in articulating this idea of the ocean as the last wilderness. 'Have you ever wondered what's out there?' is a question that Kurt Jackson asks (it's the title of one of his major paintings, too - the centrepiece of the Porth series).

Jackson has repeated the question over a number of related works: the title of two 2004 pieces is The Last Wilderness In Western Europe? This was painted on Jura (in Scotland), and both pictures are consciously emptied of human marks - just empty moorland and a delicate blue sky. An earlier picture, part of the Cape series, was entitled Do You Ever Wonder What's Out There? (1999) - an unusual composition in the Jackson oeuvre which puts the horizon very high, and focusses on the dark blue ocean flecked with white spray.

Kurt Jackson isn't that interested in many of the connotations of the ocean - the moon, time, goddesses, rebirth (though moons do appear in his art from time to time). He's not really interested in religious or pagan or magical symbols in that way. And he's not that interested in shipping, fishing, and all things maritime, like J.M.W. Turner was.

But when Jackson asks a question like 'have you ever wondered what's out there?', and considers the sea as one of the last wildernesses, that alters the interpretation of his sea paintings. It doesn't apply to all of them, though: in plenty of paintings (and not only the smaller or more modest ones), Jackson is not thinking in terms of big themes.

Hayao Miyazaki's movies include Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Laputa: Castle In the Sky and My Neighbor Totoro.

Hayao Miyazaki may be the most talented fantasy filmmaker of his generation: not even the finest filmmakers of Hollywood can rival his films when it comes to creating fantasy worlds, and fantastical characters and events. Miyazaki has millions of fans around the world, not least among fellow animators and filmmakers, for whom he is a genius.

What Hayao Miyazaki's films do is to bring you completely into a fantasy world that is instantly recognizable and familiar. It's as if these fantasy realms have always existed - very much like J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth or Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea (both influences on Miyazaki). The visionary and magical elements are fused with the domestic and familial and social elements, so that it seems completely ordinary and believable that, say, flying machines soar overhead which have flapping wings like an insect, or that little white creatures pop up out of trees and make strange clicking noises.

To write one hit animation movie is amazing, to write eleven is remarkable. To write and direct one spectacular animated picture is very impressive, to write and direct eleven features is unheard-of in the world of contemporary commercial animation.

This new study of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away includes chapters on Miyazaki's influences - his contemporaries and colleagues - his characters - his movies' relation to Western animation (including the Walt Disney corporation) - and his themes and motifs. The book also explores Japanese animation, its production and style, some classics of anime, and digital animation.

Includes quotes by Miyazaki; critics and fans on the movie; and resources.

This is an important addition to film studies, the most painstaking study of Andrei Tarkovsky's work available.

Contains 150 illustrations, of Tarkovsky's films, Tarkovsky at work, his contemporaries, and his favourite painters.

Andrei Tarkovsky is one of the most fascinating of filmmakers. He is supremely romantic, an old-fashioned, traditional artist - at home in the company Leonardo da Vinci, Pieter Brueghel, Aleksandr Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoievsky and Byzantine icon painters. Tarkovsky is a magician, no question, but argues for demystification (even while films celebrate mystery). His films are full of magical events, dreams, memory sequences, multiple viewpoints, multiple time zones and bizarre occurrences.

As genre films, Andrei Tarkovsky's movies are some of the most accomplished in cinema. As science fiction films, Stalker and Solaris have no superiors, and very few peers. Only the greatest sci-fi films can match them: Metropolis, King Kong, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Tarkovsky happily and methodically rewrote the rules of the sci-fi genre: Stalker and Solaris are definitely not routine genre outings. They don't have the monsters, the aliens, the visual effects, the battles, the laser guns, the stunts and action set-pieces of regular science fiction movies.

No one could deny that Andrei Roublyov is one of the greatest historical films to explore the Middle Ages, up there with The Seventh Seal, El Cid, The Navigator and Pier Paolo Pasolini's 'Life' trilogy. If you judge Andrei Roublyov in terms of historical accuracy, epic spectacle, serious themes, or cinematic poetry, it comes out at the top. Finally, in the religious film genre, The Sacrifice and Nostalghia are among the finest in cinema, the equals of the best of Ingmar Bergman, Luis Bunuel, Robert Bresson and Carl-Theodor Dreyer.

EXTRACT FROM THE INTRODUCTION

Philip Toynbee declared, in 1961, that Tolkien's 'childish books had passed into a merciful oblivion', a wonderful statement, just a tad inaccurate. In 1997, The Lord of the Rings was voted the top book of the 20th century by readers in a British bookstore's poll (Waterstone's). 104 out of 105 stores and 25,000 readers put The Lord of the Rings at the top (1984 was second).

Around 100 million copies of The Lord of the Rings had been sold by the end of the twentieth century, and 60 million copies of The Hobbit, with sales of around 3 million per year of the two books combined. Readers just love reading Tolkien's books. It's that simple. You can't force people to buy books or go see movies; there's isn't a magic formula (or ruling ring) to hypnotize readers and consumers (if there was, it'd be worth billions). And the Tolkien phenomenon began with readers. Back in 1937, 1954 and 1955, the publishers Allen & Unwin did their bit, of course, with reviews, blurbs, advertizing and so on, promoting The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as did the critics, but it was readers who first started the phenomenon that has become truly global. Tolkien's influence on literature has been considerable, too, and not just in the realm of fantasy, sci-fi, fairy tales and related genres. As fantasy author Terry Brooks said, Tolkien 'was the premier fantasy writer of the last century, and all of us writing today owe him a huge debt.' No other writer W.H. Auden reckoned had 'created an imaginary world and a history in such detail'. Colin Wilson agreed that only a few writers have concocted a total universe, and that Tolkien's was very impressive. Tolkien's mythological writings may be the 'largest body of invented mythology in the history of literature', according to David Day. Invented, that is, by one person. It's also 'certainly the most complex and detailed invented world in all literature'.

Jeremy Robinson has written many critical studies, including Steven Spielberg, Arthur Rimbaud, Jean-Luc Godar, and The Sacred Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, plus literary monographs on: Samuel Beckett; Thomas Hardy; Andre Gide; Robert Graves; and Lawrence Durrell.

Includes bibliography, illustrations, appendices and notes. ISBN 9781861714763. 272 pages.

This book offers an all-round introduction to the cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky. It explores every aspect of Tarkovsky's output, including scripts, budget, production, shooting, editing, camera, sound, music, acting, themes, symbols, motifs, and spirituality. Tarkovsky's films are analyzed in depth, with scene-by-scene discussions for some famous sequences. Fully illustrated.

Andrei Tarkovsky is one of the most fascinating of filmmakers. He is supremely romantic, an old-fashioned, traditional artist - at home in the company Leonardo da Vinci, Pieter Brueghel, Aleksandr Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoievsky and Byzantine icon painters. Tarkovsky is a magician, no question, but argues for demystification (even while films celebrate mystery). His films are full of magical events, dreams, memory sequences, multiple viewpoints, multiple time zones and bizarre occurrences.

As genre films, Andrei Tarkovsky's movies are some of the most accomplished in cinema. As science fiction films, Stalker and Solaris have no superiors, and very few peers. Only the greatest sci-fi films can match them: Metropolis, King Kong, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Tarkovsky happily and methodically rewrote the rules of the sci-fi genre: Stalker and Solaris are definitely not routine genre outings. They don't have the monsters, the aliens, the visual effects, the battles, the laser guns, the stunts and action set-pieces of regular science fiction movies.

No one could deny that Andrei Roublyov is one of the greatest historical films to explore the Middle Ages, up there with The Seventh Seal, El Cid, The Navigator and Pier Paolo Pasolini's 'Life' trilogy. If you judge Andrei Roublyov in terms of historical accuracy, epic spectacle, serious themes, or cinematic poetry, it comes out at the top. Finally, in the religious film genre, The Sacrifice and Nostalghia are among the finest in cinema, the equals of the best of Ingmar Bergman, Luis Bunuel, Robert Bresson and Carl-Theodor Dreyer.

The text for this new edition has been updated and revised.

Includes illustrations, bibliography, filmography and notes. ISBN 9781861714336.