The Cinema of Globalization: A Guide to Films about the New Economic Order - Hardcover

Zaniello, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801444926 ISBN 13: 9780801444920

Publisher: ILR Press, 2007

Synopsis

Tom Zaniello's fascinating new guide to films about globalization―its origins, its relationship with colonialism, neocolonialism, the growth of migratory labor, and movements to counter or protest its adverse effects―offers readers and viewers the opportunity to both discover new films and see well-known works in a new way. From Afro@Digital to Zoolander, Zaniello discusses 201 films, including features such as The Constant Gardener, Dirty Pretty Things, and Syriana; documentaries and other nonfiction films such as Blue Vinyl, Darwin's Nightmare, and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price; online films; and television productions.

Zaniello casts a wide net to provide cinematic representations of globalization from all angles:

-films about global labor and labor unions affected by globalization;
-films about global capital and multinational corporations;
-films about the transnational organizations (WB, IMF, WTO) most closely identified with globalization and global capital;
-films about labor history and the daily life of working-class people as they relate to the development of globalization;
-films about the environment directly related to changes in labor or capital; and
-films about changes in both the workplace and the corporate office in the era of multinational corporations.

Each entry in The Cinema of Globalization offers a summary of the main issues in the film and their relationship to globalization, sometimes a reference to the film's place in a director's work or tradition of cinema, and an often-opinionated assessment of the film's strengths and weaknesses. Like the best film guides, this book is an addictive reading experience full of ideas for future viewing. At the same time, it serves as an inviting and accessible introduction to a difficult topic―the central themes and aspects of globalization.

To read Tom Zaniello's blog on the cinema of labor and globalization, featuring even more reviews, visit http://tzaniello.wordpress.com.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"Viewing globalization through the lens of cinema makes the issues visceral and reminds us that there are real lives at stake in every instance. This book brings a worldwide range of voices on globalization to our attention. The Cinema of Globalization will be useful to film buffs and people working in labor studies, sociology, anthropology, refugee studies, history, journalism, and mass communication. Tom Zaniello's writing is smart, concise, and funny, making this much more than a reference book. I was at times thrilled and outraged just reading the entries; now I have to see the films for myself."--Christopher Martin, Miami University, author of Framed! Labor and the Corporate Media

"When I heard that Tom Zaniello was doing a new labor film book on globalization, I was elated. This guide will be very useful to people like me who are labor educators as well as to people who put together film series, professors of film, people who teach in the social sciences, and the growing number of global activists who are part of the human-rights movement, international labor movement, and the anti-sweatshop movement."-Judith Ancel, University of Missouri-Kansas City

About the Author

Tom Zaniello is Director of the Honors Program at Northern Kentucky University and Adjunct Professor at the National Labor College, George Meany Center for Labor Studies. He is the author of Working Stiffs, Union Maids, Reds, and Riffraff: An Expanded Guide to Films about Labor, also from Cornell.

Edition details

• Publisher: ILR Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0801444926
• ISBN 13: 9780801444920
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 224