Lexington Books
Pages: 392
•
Trim: 6½ x 9½
978-0-7391-3185-5 • Hardback • August 2009 • $162.00 • (£125.00)
978-0-7391-3187-9 • eBook • August 2009 • $153.50 • (£119.00)
Sandra Gayle Carter is an independent scholar working in Francophone literatures and film studies.
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Chapter 1: Laying the Industry Foundations, 1956–1970
Chapter 3 Chapter 2: Looking to Define a Moroccan Aesthetic, 1971–1985
Chapter 4 Chapter 3: New Developments, New Audiences, 1986–2006
Chapter 5 Chapter 4: Recent Developments, Themes and Conclusions
It is a relief that at last Sandra Gayle Carter's magisterial and multi-dimensional work on Moroccan cinema is now available to film scholars, to media and cultural studies specialists, and to experts on Morocco and the contemporary 'Middle East'. History, political economy, textual analyses of numerous movies, global cinema influences from France, Egypt, Hollywood, Bollywood, Hong Kong: all are woven into this study. As are Morocco's shifting cultural geographies, from the marginalized forty-five percent of its Berber citizens, to the fifty percent of its population under twenty, to the thirty percent who live in one city, Casablanca. This book definitively raises the bar for studies of national cinemas.
— John D.H. Downing, Director Emeritus, Global Media Research Center, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
This is a finely-wrought study of Moroccan cinema – one of the most important in the Arab world, arguably second only to Egypt's. Situating her work within the field of cultural studies, Sandra Gayle Carter's historical perspective is based on a close analysis of written and visual material in the Moroccan film archives. She brings this to bear on the origins of filmmaking during French colonial rule and then, in the body of her book, on the first five decades of Moroccan independence(1956–2006). As she engages in a detailed and comprehensive assessment of the institutional structure of Moroccan cinema and provides clear-headed interpretations of a number of key Moroccan films, Carter ends with some suggestive remarks about the future of Moroccan cinema, both thematically and with regard to the role of cinema in Moroccan society.
— Kevin Dwyer, author of Beyond Casablanca: M.A.Tazi and the Adventure of Moroccan Cinema (2004).
Highly recommended.
— Choice Reviews, March 2010
[Sandra Gayle Carter 's] magnificent book What Moroccan Cinema?: A Historical and Critical Study, 1956-2006 draws on a huge amount of research to give readers a rich context for understanding Moroccan cinema in its first 50 years since independence. Carter provides a model for just what it would take to comprehend films from this nation without reducing out questions of funding, audience, changing social history, and the media worlds within which cinema always operates. And she does so without neglecting to provide readings of a substantial number of individual films along the way, regularly juxtaposing discussion of the film text with its reception and financial fate. Her comprehensive study is an invaluable resource for those who want to understand both individual Moroccan films in their historical context, and for those interested in the larger question of the place of Moroccan cultural production (including film, videos, media and ? by extension ? literature) in Moroccan society....Carter is anexcellent guide for helping us to understand the multiple registers within which the dynamic and ever changing Moroccan cinema has operated and continues to operate as Moroccan art and society continue to change. She has done Middle East and North Africa
— Middle East Journal
This is a substantial work that brings new light to the topic of Moroccan cinema. Carter has done an incredible amount of research into its history—covering a 50 year span—while also defining the major relevant issues and arguments.
— Mary Vogl, Colorado State University
[Sandra Gayle Carter 's] magnificent book What Moroccan Cinema?: A Historical and Critical Study, 1956-2006 draws on a huge amount of research to give readers a rich context for understanding Moroccan cinema in its first 50 years since independence. Carter provides a model for just what it would take to comprehend films from this nation without reducing out questions of funding, audience, changing social history, and the media worlds within which cinema always operates. And she does so without neglecting to provide readings of a substantial number of individual films along the way, regularly juxtaposing discussion of the film text with its reception and financial fate. Her comprehensive study is an invaluable resource for those who want to understand both individual Moroccan films in their historical context, and for those interested in the larger question of the place of Moroccan cultural production (including film, videos, media and — by extension — literature) in Moroccan society....Carter is an excellent guide for helping us to understand the multiple registers within which the dynamic and ever changing Moroccan cinema has operated and continues to operate as Moroccan art and society continue to change. She has done Middle East and North African film studies and Moroccan cultural studies a great service.
— Middle East Journal
The author's attention to detail is particularly successful. This attention to background information and the accompanying extensive footnotes ensures the readers realize the complexity of the study and understand how challenging it is to analyze Moroccan cinema as so many factors have to be taken into consideration…. Overall, a successful and fascinating text about the current state and even more so the history of Moroccan cinema.
— Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies
Sandra Gayle Carter's book fills a void in the publication market dedicated to Moroccan's film history. She opens a door to one of the thus far mostly overlooked film industries. Carter's cultural studies' approach to her work is very important for reader positioning because it explains the content as well as the representation of said subject matter throughout the book….Throughout the introduction as well as the chapters, the author's attention to detail is particularly successful. This attention to background information and the accompanying extensive footnotes ensures the readers realize the complexity of the study and understand how challenging it is to analyze the Moroccan cinema….Overall, a successful and fascinating text about the current state and even more so the history of Moroccan cinema.
— Issue 20, June 2011; Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies