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Fowkes, Katherine A. The Fantasy Film. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 201 pp. ISBN 978-1-4051-6879-3.
The Fantasy Film, Katherine A. Fowkes's contribution to Wiley-Blackwell's New Approaches to Film Genre series, delivers an impressive panoramic overview of the fantasy film genre with the consequence of occasional fuzzy focus. Although this is an inherent and even expected flaw in a book meant to encapsulate a whole genre (as necessarily implied by the series), The Fantasy Film's greatest successes and largest drawbacks both result from the vast amount of ground covered. In accordance with providing an introductory overview of the genre, Fowkes's central thesis seems to be simply that the fantasy genre is a legitimate and complex field of study. Fowkes maps out the genres of fantasy literature and fantasy film in impressive detail throughout the first three chapters, creating an excellent handbook for students or informal readers interested in further exploration in the field. The opening chapter delves into the intricacies of genre questions and the following two survey chapters offer useful sources and chronologies. Chapters four through thirteen each examine one film or film series in order to demonstrate various themes, commonalities, and differences that may be found within the fantasy genre. These chapters give a wide array of options and ideas for study, but at the cost of reducing the possibility for deep or focused analysis of any the films or issues within the genre. Fowkes's conclusion reiterates her thesis while emphasizing the pervasive appeal of the genre.
From the introduction on, Fowkes boldly confronts the convoluted definitions and negative expectations placed on the genre of fantasy. She explains several previous critical theories before suggesting that fantasy, science fiction, and horror all be considered under the umbrella term of the "fantastic." Fowkes also confronts those who deride the genre as escapist or childish, claiming that fantasy deserves serious study in part because it embodies the real issue beneath these accusations: "a culture that is intensely conflicted about its relationship with work and utility in the face of a guilty desire for participation in and consumption of leisure experiences" (9). The fantasy genre challenges this and other related dichotomies (rationality vs. imagination, adults vs. children, nostalgia vs. progress) without necessarily resolving the tensions. Fantasy, Fowkes claims, is...