PN1993.5.L4K43

- Includes bibliographical references - Includes a general index and a film index - Includes filmography - Includes illustrations in black and white

Part 1: Contexts Chapter One: On Lebanese National Identity Chapter Two: A Brief History of Cinema in Lebanon Part 2: Representations Chapter Three: Imagining Beirut Chapter Four: Social and Religious Breakdown Chapter Five: Violence and Masculinity Chapter Six: Mothers, Fighters and Taboo Breakers Part 3: Reflections Chapter Seven: War and Memory

Lina Khatib adopts the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975 as her starting point and takes us through to in this, the first major book on Lebanese cinema and its links with politics and national identity. She offers fascinating insights into more that thirty years of feature filmmaking in Lebanon and examines the role cinema has played in commenting on social and political conflict in the country, as well as on the tension that still surrounds the concept of 'national identity' in Lebanon. Examining such films as Jocelyne Saab's /Once Upon a Time, Beirut/, Maroun Baghdadi's /Little Wars/ and Ziad Doueiri's /West Beyrouth/, and using interviews with the current generation of Lebanese filmmakers, Khatib reveals how the Civil War has continued to play a central role in Lebanon's cinematic imagination. In so doing, she opens up a fresh angle on social and political conflict in Lebanon and calls for the idea of 'national cinema' to be re-viewed and for cinema's role as a mirror of society to be reaffirmed. - Cover