Includes bibliographical references and index.

Interpreting Cinema: Adaptations, Intertextualities, Art Movements is a collection of sixteen essays which explores the academic aspect of film studies.
Film is a complex medium whose means of display, storage and survival are an extension into time and space. The act of interpretation must work with the multiple facets of film as a medium.
Films are not only a cultural representation, but also a means of cultural production. Their appeal to large and mixed audiences provides an effective means of political criticism and raising social consciousness. Films become the unconscious of the nation as they reflect upon the power relations, political conditions and social disturbances using the individual psyche as a medium of expression. Another conceptual category important for film arts is the environmental space. Interaction between space and individual is an important part of the semiotics of the film and sends out signals towards its meaning. Beyond the film itself, the personal contexts of artists provide an additional means to connect the worlds of illusion and reality.
The essays in this volume take up adaptations from fiction and drama both from within the same culture and across cultures and explore the relationships between cultures and mediums. There are individual essays on relationships, theoretical frameworks and art movements, reflecting the intimate connection between critical theory and filmmaking.
This book will be of interest both to the lay reader and the serious researcher as it comments upon the significance of the film medium and opens out its mysteries. It goes on to provoke the imagination of the reader to enter into a dialogue with unexplored areas and recognise the facts that a film is more than mere entertainment.