Reel Food

by Anne L. Bower (editor)

Reel Food is the first book devoted to food as a vibrant and evocative element of film, featuring original essays by major food studies scholars, among them Carole Counihan and Michael Ashkenazi. This collection reads various films through their uses of food-from major food films like Babette's Feast and Big Night to less obvious choices including The Godfather trilogy and The Matrix . The contributors draw attention to the various ways in which food is employed to make meaning in film. In some cases, such as Soul Food and Tortilla Soup , for example, food is used to represent racial and ethnic identities. In other cases, such as Chocolat and Like Water for Chocolate , food plays a role in gender and sexual politics. And, of course, there is also discussion of the centrality of popcorn to the movie-going experience.
This book is a feast for scholars, foodies, and cinema buffs. It will be of major interest to anyone working in popular culture, film studies, and food studies, at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

Genres: Food

364 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Eric Lawless]

A little bit too esoteric and long winded for me, to be honest. I find the way food is used as symbolism both on film and in other media fascinating. This book was just a tad to windy and a bit over scholarly and to my taste...a bit dull in parts. Not a bad book, just one that didn't strike my fancy quite so much.

[Emily]

This is a great text for studying food films and diving deeper into specific examples.