'Screen Writings: Genres, Classics, and Aesthetics' offers close readings of genre films and acknowledged film classics in an attempt to explore both the aesthetics of genre and the definition of 'classic' - as well as the changing perception of so-called classic movies over time.

List of Illustrations; Introduction: The Film of Value; Part I. Film Genres, Film Classics, and Film Aesthetics; Shooting the City: The Gangster, Manhattanites, and the Movies;Back to the Future, or the Vanguard Meets the Rearguard; Flags and Letters, Men and War; Farce, Dreams, and Desire: Some Like It Hot Re-viewed; Interlude; Switching Genres, or Playing to the Camera, Playing to the House: Stage vs. Screen Acting; On the Road Again: The Road Film and the Two Coppolas; The Coming-of-Age Fim a la Fellini: The Case of I vitelloni; Early vs. Later Bergman: Winter Light and Autumn Sonata Revisited; "Everyone Has His Reasons": Words, Images, and La grande illusion in the Cinema of Jean Renoir; A Passage to Tokyo: The Art of Ozu, Remembered; Through the Looking Glass: The American Art Cinema in an Age of Social Change; Bibliography; Index

Bert Cardullo is Professor and Chair of Media and Communication at the Izmir University of Economics in Turkey.