Lebanese cinema : imagining the civil car and beyond / Lina Khatib.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Khatib, Lina.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion pictures--Lebanon.

Motion pictures.

History.

Lebanon--History--Civil War, 1975-1990--In motion pictures.

Lebanon.

War and motion pictures.

Physical Description:

xxv, 214 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : I.B. Tauris & Co., 2008.

Summary:

Lina Khatib adopts the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975 as her starting point and takes us through to today in this, the first major book on Lebanese cinema and its links with politics and national identity. She offers fascinating insights into more than thirty years of feature filmmaking in Lebanon and examines the role cinema has played in commenting on social and political conflict in the country, as well as on the tension that still surrounds the concept of 'national identity' in Lebanon.

Examining such films as Jocelyne Saab's Once Upon a Time, Beirut, Maroun Baghdadi's Little Wars and Ziad Doueiri's West Beyrouth, and using interviews with the current generation of Lebanese filmmakers, Khatib reveals how the Civil War has continued to play a central role in Lebanon's cinematic imagination. In so doing, she opens up a fresh angle on social and political conflict in Lebanon and calls for the idea of 'national cinema' to be re-viewed and for cinema's role as a mirror of society to be reaffirmed.

Contents:

Introduction: Lebanese Cinema and the Civil War xvii

Part I Contexts 1

Chapter 1 On Lebanese National Identity 3

Chapter 2 A Brief History of Cinema in Lebanon 21

Part II Representations 55

Chapter 3 Imagining Beirut 57

Chapter 4 Social and Religious Breakdown 83

Chapter 5 Violence and Masculinity 105

Chapter 6 Mothers, Fighters and Taboo Breakers 129

Part III Reflections 151

Chapter 7 War and Memory 153

Epilogue: On National Cinema 185.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [101]-208) and index.

ISBN:

9781845116286

1845116283

OCLC:

154703647