Mysterious Skin: Male Bodies in Contemporary Cinema

(Paperback)

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Borrowing its title from Gregg Araki's 2005 film, in which the camera's contemplation of the male body encourages us to feel that body, and covering a broad span of subjects and films, "Mysterious Skin" offers a wider, more representative picture of the depiction of the male body in contemporary world cinemas than has hitherto been attempted. An international array of major experts explore the treatment of masculinity and the male body in the cinemas of Africa, Australia, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, North America, Spain, Taiwan and Vietnam, as well as Hollywood.Their common concern is to reveal how the representation of the male body is used in films to convey a country's anxieties about its national identity and history, as well as how it engages with questions of racial, sexual or gender politics. They discuss key actors, directors and films of these countries, from Ewan MacGregor in Peter Greenaway's "The Pillow Book", through the films of Wong Kar Wai, to Paul Hogan as Mick Dundee in "Crocodile Dundee". In so doing, "Mysterious Skin" also provides a strong overview of important cinema produced around the world in the last twenty years.

Author Bio

Santiago Fouz-Hernndez lectures Spanish Cinema at the University of Durham, UK. He is co-author of 'Live Flesh: The Male Body in Contemporary Spanish Cinema' (I.B. Tauris, 2007) and co-editor of 'Madonnas Drowned Worlds: New Approaches to Her Cultural Transformations' (1983-2003) (2004). He is reviews editor of the journal 'Studies in Hispanic Cinemas'.