...This chapter defines and discusses the genre of children’s film, situating the genre within its plural contexts, many of which are shared with children’s literature (dual audience, paradoxes between actual children and the child constructed by the work, anxiety about what youth view, visual...

... Series of Unfortunate Events Meta-adaptation Children’s film Adaptation In spite of the many and often unique challenges to adaptation of children’s literature, and particularly of children’s metafiction, such adaptations nevertheless do thrive. A common, medium-specific equivalence for the ‘meta...

... Baum’s The Wizard of Oz shows that they offer playful metafilmic and material affordances, which audiences have exploited to actively participate in discourses and definitions of childhood and children’s film. By attending to these active negotiations, through what I term the films...

... The Dark Crystal children’s film puppetry fandom As a kid, millennial Jennifer Clifton would routinely watch her VHS copy of Jim Henson’s fantasy The Dark Crystal (1982) . She loved immersing herself in the wondrous world of Thra—the film’s fictional universe completely removed from...

... Lear Edward Shaw George Bernard Ray Sukumar Constitution of India Subaltern Sepoy Mutiny ‘Emergency’ children’s film Shatranj Ke Khiladi was well-received in the West, but in India itself there was grumbling that Ray had destroyed the patriotic essence of Premchand’s story...

... meaning varies according to changing values. This chapter advances understanding of the way these differences impact on defining a film as a children’s film. Rather than draw on existing distinctions made between family films and children’s film, it presents new research data from a survey of the European...

... between children’s films and avant-garde movements, with an emphasis on avant-garde films. The period it covers spans almost hundred years, from the 1920s to the present, and considers different genres and films from four countries: France, Germany, Russia, and the United States. After a definition...

...This chapter outlines the history of the Children’s Film Foundation, a unique body that, for nearly thirty years, produced films specifically created for an audience of children in the United Kingdom and beyond. At the heart of the CFF’s work was a deeply held conviction that childhood...

... and disturbing opening scene to the family-related themes that are more typical of children’s films (Charlotte’s Web, 2006, Paramount). Frame-grab. 06Abstract: Throughout their history, Western children’s films (along with the subgenre of family films) have recurrently featured real animals...

...This chapter traces the development of Swedish children’s film from the focal point of the national discourse in Sweden. Children’s films in Sweden, especially those with a high audience appeal, tend to be a part of the national discourse and to promote ideas about Sweden and Swedishness, as well...

...Disney films are synonymous with children’s films, yet many adults also watch them, with or without children. Adult relationships with Disney films change, and the films that Disney releases change, but audience understandings about what a Disney film is can be inflexible. Using an innovative mixed...

...The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Film is the most comprehensive study of international children’s cinema published to date. Overturning common prejudices that films for children are unworthy of serious attention, it presents nuanced and wide-ranging discussions of iconic and neglected productions...

... Potter epic film children’s film popular film Between the first and last instalments of this series, an entire generation grew up. Totalling some twenty hours, it is unprecedented in length; it features a protagonist who embodies all the characteristics of an epic hero; it includes many special...

...This introductory chapter begins by establishing the overarching objectives of the handbook. It goes on to explore the thorny question of how children’s film may be conceptualized, outlining a number of possible critical approaches to the topic, and arguing in favour of understanding children’s...

...Figure 6.1. “There’s no place like home.” The utopian ending of The Wizard of Oz (1939, MGM). Frame-grab. Figure 6.2. The child’s inarticulate grief in the final shot of The Snowman (1982, TVC). Frame-grab. In the popular consciousness, children’s films...

...The much-debated categories of children’s film and young-adult film consistently intersect with twentieth-century history; the theme of war; the trope of children’s play; and the unpredictable, lasting effects of trauma. Some critical studies discuss history, war, and film or film and play...

...Figure 32.1. Disney’s new brand? Possessed children and other horror tropes in The Watcher in the Woods (1980). Frame-grab. Figure 32.2.  Gremlins subverts children’s film expectations in this kitchen scene between mother and “child” (1984, Warner Bros...