Cinema and Community is the first book-length study of the way mainstream commercial cinema represents society's complex relationship with community. Critically engaging with the idea and practice of community, it provides an original and substantial analysis of contemporary films that treat community as a significant theme.

Drawing on the work of major writers such as Zygmunt Bauman and Hamid Naficy, D.W. McKiernan explores how the impact of socio-economic change on communities finds expression in films as diverse as Ae Fond Kiss, Calendar Girls, The Idiots, In This World, Lilya 4-Ever, The Magdalene Sisters and Pleasantville.

About the Author

D.W. MCKIERNAN is an Honorary Research Fellow at Leeds Trinity and All Saints, University of Leeds, UK, and prior to his retirement was Principal Lecturer and Head of the Department of Cultural and Communication Studies. He was also a founding member of the Centre for Cultural Studies at Leeds University, now the AHRC Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory & History at the University of Leeds, UK.

Review 

'This elegantly argued, insightful book looks at the manner in which the commercial cinema presents modern audiences with images of community as ideals to be either embraced or questioned.'

- W. W. Dixon, American Library Association