Matthew Bannister is a postgraduate theory supervisor in media arts at Waikato Institute of Technology Kirikiriroa/Hamilton, Aotearoa/New Zealand. He has written two previous books: Positively George Street: Sneaky Feelings and the Dunedin Sound and White Boys White Noise: Masculinities and 1980s Guitar Rock. He lives in Hamilton with his partner Alice Bulmer and has two sons.
Request Academic Copy
Please copy the ISBN for submitting review copy form
Description
A much-needed study of a most remarkable filmmaker. Matthew Bannister's invaluable book demonstrates a wealth of approaches to understanding the movies and performances of an indigenous artist and comic genius. --Ian Conrich "University of Vienna" I'd only seen two Taika Waititi films - What We Do in the Shadows (2014) and Thor: Ragnarok (2017) - before picking up Matthew Bannister's Eye of the Taika (Wayne State University Press) . In retrospect, these two examples illustrate what many have come to see as an unfortunate shift in the writer-director-actor's persona: from low-fi New Zealand prankster, to Hollywood gun-for-hire. But regardless of what audiences - be they local or global - may think of his work, there's more to his identity than this simplified distinction implies, and Bannister does an admirable (if somewhat flavorless) job navigating the artist's intersecting cultural, ethnic, and artistic backgrounds. --Thomas Puhr "film international" The first in-depth critical study of Aotearoa/New Zealand's most iconoclastic auteur since Peter Jackson and Jane Campion, this book is essential for anyone interested in Waititi's provocative oeuvre, the small and peripheral nation and culture that produced him, and the challenge he poses to the conventions and hierarchies of contemporary cinema. --Duncan Petrie "University of York"