Film and terrorism go back a long way. The very birth of cinema in the 1890s coincided with an early golden age of terrorism, as bomb-throwing anarchists and nationalists captured headlines in countries as far apart as France and India. One of Charlie Chaplin's earliest films is his 1916 comedy about terrorism, Behind the Screen.
Cinematic Terror provides the first history of cinema's depiction of terrorism from the early 1900s to the present day. It looks at how cinema has been the site of conflict between filmmakers and terrorists for over a century and identifies important trends in the ways that film industries in Europe, North and South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East have framed terrorism. From the birth of moving pictures to the internet age, the author explains how filmmakers from around the world have depicted terrorists, have made money and propaganda out of terrorism, and have died at the hands of terrorists. Professor Shaw shows that for over a century, cinema has had a profound impact on peoples' understanding of terrorism.
Industry Reviews
A highly readable and informative volume ... Cinematic Terror hence represents not only a stimulating read for film scholars and experts of cultural history and terrorism, but its practical subdivision into fourteen chapters, each dealing with an individual film and a sociohistorical context, also makes it useful teaching material. * Alphaville *
Cinematic Terror sets out the main contours of portrayals of terrorism in the cinema, and delves deeply into the complex relationship between terrorism, filmmaking, and public opinion. * Cineaste *
Terrorism is central to the international politics of our age. The mass media are central to terrorism. Given these two facts it is surprising that scholars have failed to delve deep into the treatment of terrorism by the most potent mass media of the past century: the cinema. Until now, that is. In this path-breaking book Tony Shaw opens the history of the representation of terrorism in global feature film. Shaw moves deftly across time, geographical space and genre with a series of well-chosen and flawlessly executed case studies. The films considered range from masterpieces by some of the greatest directors of all time, including Alfred Hitchcock himself, to crude exploitation flicks by way of blockbusters, epics, art house and even Bollywood. With meticulous research, unfailing insight and scrupulous balance and objectivity Shaw is an eloquent and insightful guide to this important subject. Seasoned scholars, students of film and security issues and general readers alike will find much to compel attention and provoke further thought in this important book. * Nicholas J. Cull, Professor of Public Diplomacy, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, USA *
An excellent account of the long history of terrorism as depicted on film-a major contribution to the field. Tony Shaw does a fine job not merely in introducing and scrutinizing the discussed movies, but in placing those movies and similar ones, their creators, their supporters, their opponents, and their audiences into the political, sociological, and cultural domestic and/or global contexts of their respective time periods. Most striking is the extent to which cinematic terrorism has related at all times to real life violence of this sort and, taken together, has provided more diverse and compelling portrayals of terrorists, their grievances, and their motives than one would find over time in news media reports. * Brigitte Nacos, Journalist, Author, and Adjunct Professor Political Science, Columbia University, USA *
Tony Shaw has produced an important and ground-breaking study of how cinema has represented international terrorism from the start of the twentieth century to the present. What particularly stands out about this excellent book is the breadth of its coverage and the historical rigour that Shaw brings to his subject. Cinematic Terror is both a highly original piece of film-historical scholarship and a very timely work that has relevance to the world today. * James Chapman, Professor of Film Studies, University of Leicester, UK, and editor of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *
