Mining the Home Movie

Excavations in Histories and Memories

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by Karen L. Ishizuka and Patricia R. Zimmermann

Type

Studies

Subject

Genre > Documentary

Keywords

documentary, amateur films

Publishing date

2007

Publisher

University of California Press

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 360 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-0-520-24807-6

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Book Presentation:
The first international anthology to explore the historical significance of amateur film, Mining the Home Movie makes visible, through image and analysis, the hidden yet ubiquitous world of home moviemaking. These essays boldly combine primary research, archival collections, critical analyses, filmmakers' own stories, and new theoretical approaches regarding the meaning and value of amateur and archival films. Editors Karen L. Ishizuka and Patricia R. Zimmermann have fashioned a groundbreaking volume that identifies home movies as vital methods of visually preserving history. The essays cover an enormous range of subject matter, defining an important genre of film studies and establishing the home movie as an invaluable tool for extracting historical and social insights.

About the authors:
Karen L. Ishizuka is an independent writer, curator, and documentary producer and is the author of Lost and Found: Reclaiming the Japanese American Incarceration (2006). Patricia R. Zimmerman is Professor of Cinema and Photography at Ithaca College. She is the author of Reel Families: A Social History of Amateur Film (1995) and States of Emergency: Documentaries, Wars, Democracies (2000).

Press Reviews:
"Groundbreaking essays intrigue with descriptions of films that you may never see but wish you could."— Los Angeles Magazine

"Ishizuka’s work allows us to see a multi-hued and multifaceted history that serves as a bulwark against those who would gloss over or forget its many nuances."— Asian Week

"This is a fascinating, informative resource for those interested in the history of film, documentary film in particular. . . . Highly recommended."— Choice

"By claiming home movies as essential tools of historiography, Ishizuka and Zimmerman manage to break down artificial barriers between public histories and private records. In this groundbreaking volume, their selection of visionary essays offers a way to reclaim devalued work and turn the tables on the cataloguers. Absolutely required reading for historians, curators and media analysts."—B. Ruby Rich, author of Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film Movement

See the publisher website: University of California Press