Shoe Reels

The History and Philosophy of Footwear in Film

Elizabeth Ezra, Catherine Wheatley (Herausgeber)

Buch | Softcover

320 Seiten

2022
Edinburgh University Press (Verlag)
978-1-4744-5141-3 (ISBN)

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Examining the special relationship between footwear and film, Shoe Reels explores images of shoes in cinema. It questions what shoes mean in the context of narrative, aesthetics and symbolism, why they are so memorable, and what their wider cultural resonances might be.

In his famous interpretation of Vincent Van Gogh’s painting A Pair of Peasant’s Shoes (1886), Heidegger argues that shoes tell us all we need to know about the world of the person who walks in them. In the case of Van Gogh’s painting, we learn this not through a description of the pair of shoes, nor by a report on how to make shoes, but by looking at the shoes. Heidegger thus gestures towards the power of the visual arts to show us human truths through images of footwear and the feet they conceal or reveal, a power that finds its fullest expression in the cinema. From Chaplin’s meal of boots (The Gold Rush, 1925), through Powell and Pressburger’s Red Shoes (1948) and Dorothy’s ruby slippers (The Wizard of Oz, 1939), to Julia Roberts’ pvc thigh-highs (Pretty Woman, 1990), Marty McFly’s power-lacing Nikes (Back to the Future, 1985) and the slim, spike-heeled stiletto that graces the poster for The Devil Wears Prada (2006), shoes are not only some of the cinema’s most enduring icons; they also serve as characterisations, plot devices, soundtracks, metaphors and philosophical touchpoints. This book anaylses their significnace through a range of approaches drawn from the fields of Film Studies, Philosophy, Cultural History, Fashion, Cultural Studies and Politics.

Professor Elizabeth Ezra is Professor of Cinema and Culture at the University of Stirling. King’s College London

Introduction: Foot Notes

1: Max’s Stylish Shoes, Margaret C. Flinn

2: A Girl and A Shoe: Marcel Fabre’s Amor Pedestre (1941), Malgorzata Bugaj

3: ‘An intensive study of – feet!’ in two films by Lois Weber: Shoes and The Blot, Pamela Hutchinson

4: MAGIC SHOES: Dorothy, Cinderella, Carrie, Elizabeth Ezra

5: The Ruby Slippers at the V&A: An Odyssey, Keith Lodwick

6: Blood-red shoes? Ian Christie

7: The Two Textures of Invisibility: Shoes as Liminal Questionings in Sullivan’s Travels, Kelli Fuery

8: How to See through a Shoe: The Fashion Show Sequence in How to Marry a Millionaire, Ana Salzberg

9: Frenetic Footwear and Lively Lace-Ups: the Spectacle of Shoes in Golden Age Hollywood Animation, Christopher Holliday

10: Ferragamo’s Shoes: From Silent Cinema to the present, Eugenia Paulicelli

11: Feet of Strength: The Sword-and-Sandals Film, Robert A. Rushing

12: Men in Boots: On Spectacular Masculinity and its Desublimation, Louise Wallenberg

13: ‘The brunette with the legs’: the significance of footwear in Marnie, Lucy Bolton

14: The Sole of Africa: Shoes in Three African Films, Rachael Langford

15: Slippers and Heels: In the Mood for Love and Sartorial Investigation, Tyler Parks

16: Sex, Corruption and Killer Heels: Footwear in the Korean Corporate Crime Drama, Kate Taylor-Jones

17: It’s Gotta Be the Shoes: Nike in the Spike-o-sphere, Jeff Scheible

18: ‘Nice Shoes’: Will Smith, Mid-2000s (Post) Racial Discourse and the Symbolic Significance of Shoes in I, Robot (Alex Proyas, 2004) and The Pursuit of Happyness (Gabriele Muccino, 2006), Hannah Hamad

19: "Whoa! Look at all her Louboutins!" Girlhood and Shoes in the films of Sofia Coppola, Fiona Handyside

20: Isabelle’s Espadrilles. Or, les chaussures d’Huppert, Catherine Wheatley

Erscheinungsdatum	16.08.2020
Reihe/Serie	Film and Fashions
Zusatzinfo	50 colour illustrations
Verlagsort	Edinburgh
Sprache	englisch
Maße	170 x 244 mm
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Design / Innenarchitektur / Mode
ISBN-10	1-4744-5141-1 / 1474451411
ISBN-13	978-1-4744-5141-3 / 9781474451413
Zustand	Neuware