American Cinema of the 2010s
American Cinema of the 2010s

Author: Dennis Bingham

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2021-12-10

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1978814844

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The 2010s might be remembered as a time of increased polarization in American life. The decade contained both the Obama era and the Trump era, and as the nation’s political fissures widened, so did the gap between the haves and have-nots. Hollywood reflected these divisions, choosing to concentrate on big franchise blockbusters at the expense of mid-budget films, while new players like Netflix and Amazon offered fresh opportunities for low-budget and independent filmmakers. As the movie business changed, films ranging from American Sniper to Get Out found ways to speak to the concerns of a divided nation. The newest installment in the Screen Decades series, American Cinema in the 2010s takes a close look at the memorable movies, visionary filmmakers, and behind-the-scenes drama that made this decade such an exciting time to be a moviegoer. Each chapter offers an in-depth examination of a specific year, covering a wide variety of films, from blockbuster superhero movies like Black Panther and animated films like Frozen to smaller-budget biopics like I, Tonya and horror films like Hereditary. This volume introduces readers to a decade in which established auteurs like Quentin Tarantino were joined by an exceptionally diverse set of new talents, taking American cinema in new directions.

American Cinema of the 2000s
American Cinema of the 2000s

Author: Timothy Corrigan

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2012-04-15

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0813553237

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The decade from 2000 to 2009 is framed, at one end, by the traumatic catastrophe of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and, at the other, by the election of the first African American president of the United States. In between, the United States and the world witnessed the rapid expansion of new media and the Internet, such natural disasters as Hurricane Katrina, political uprisings around the world, and a massive meltdown of world economies. Amid these crises and revolutions, American films responded in multiple ways, sometimes directly reflecting these turbulent times, and sometimes indirectly couching history in traditional genres and stories. In American Cinema of the 2000s, essays from ten top film scholars examine such popular series as the groundbreaking Matrix films and the gripping adventures of former CIA covert operative Jason Bourne; new, offbeat films like Juno; and the resurgence of documentaries like Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Each essay demonstrates the complex ways in which American culture and American cinema are bound together in subtle and challenging ways.

American Cinema of the 1930s
American Cinema of the 1930s

Author: Ina Rae Hark

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2007-06-21

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0813543037

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Probably no decade saw as many changes in the Hollywood film industry and its product as the 1930s did. At the beginning of the decade, the industry was still struggling with the transition to talking pictures. Gangster films and naughty comedies starring Mae West were popular in urban areas, but aroused threats of censorship in the heartland. Whether the film business could survive the economic effects of the Crash was up in the air. By 1939, popularly called "Hollywood's Greatest Year," films like Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz used both color and sound to spectacular effect, and remain American icons today. The "mature oligopoly" that was the studio system had not only weathered the Depression and become part of mainstream culture through the establishment and enforcement of the Production Code, it was a well-oiled, vertically integrated industrial powerhouse. The ten original essays in American Cinema of the 1930s focus on sixty diverse films of the decade, including Dracula, The Public Enemy, Trouble in Paradise, 42nd Street, King Kong, Imitation of Life, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Swing Time, Angels with Dirty Faces, Nothing Sacred, Jezebel, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Stagecoach .

American Cinema of the 1990s
American Cinema of the 1990s

Author: Chris Holmlund

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0813543665

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Films discussed include Terminator 2, The matrix, Home alone, Jurassic Park, Pulp fiction, Boys don't cry, Toy story and Clueless.

American Cinema of the 1960s
American Cinema of the 1960s

Author: Barry Keith Grant

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2008-02-11

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0813544718

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The profound cultural and political changes of the 1960s brought the United States closer to social revolution than at any other time in the twentieth century. The country fragmented as various challenges to state power were met with increasing and violent resistance. The Cold War heated up and the Vietnam War divided Americans. Civil rights, women's liberation, and gay rights further emerged as significant social issues. Free love was celebrated even as the decade was marked by assassinations, mass murders, and social unrest. At the same time, American cinema underwent radical change as well. The studio system crumbled, and the Production Code was replaced by a new ratings system. Among the challenges faced by the film industry was the dawning shift in theatrical exhibition from urban centers to surburban multiplexes, an increase in runaway productions, the rise of independent producers, and competition from both television and foreign art films. Hollywood movies became more cynical, violent, and sexually explicit, reflecting the changing values of the time. In ten original essays, American Cinema of the 1960s examines a range of films that characterized the decade, including Hollywood movies, documentaries, and independent and experimental films. Among the films discussed are Elmer Gantry, The Apartment, West Side Story, The Manchurian Candidate, To Kill a Mockingbird, Cape Fear, Bonnie and Clyde, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Midnight Cowboy, and Easy Rider.

American Cinema of the 1910s
American Cinema of the 1910s

Author: Charlie Keil

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0813544459

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It was during the teens that filmmaking truly came into its own. Notably, the migration of studios to the West Coast established a connection between moviemaking and the exoticism of Hollywood. The essays in American Cinema of the 1910s explore the rapid developments of the decade that began with D. W. Griffith's unrivaled one-reelers. By mid-decade, multi-reel feature films were profoundly reshaping the industry and deluxe theaters were built to attract the broadest possible audience. Stars like Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks became vitally important and companies began writing high-profile contracts to secure them. With the outbreak of World War I, the political, economic, and industrial groundwork was laid for American cinema's global dominance. By the end of the decade, filmmaking had become a true industry, complete with vertical integration, efficient specialization and standardization of practices, and self-regulatory agencies.

American Cinema of the 1940s
American Cinema of the 1940s

Author: Wheeler W. Dixon

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0813537002

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The 1940s was a watershed decade for American cinema and the nation. Shaking off the grim legacy of the Depression, Hollywood launched an unprecedented wave of production, generating some of its most memorable classics. Featuring essays by a group of respected film scholars and historians, American Cinema of the 1940s brings this dynamic and turbulent decade to life with such films as Citizen Kane, Rebecca, The Lady Eve, Sergeant York, How Green Was My Valley, Casablanca, Mrs. Miniver, The Road to Morocco, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Kiss of Death, Force of Evil, Caught, and Apology for Murder. Illustrated with many rare stills and filled with provocative insights, the volume will appeal to students, teachers, and to all those interested in cultural history and American film of the twentieth century.

Stellar Transformations
Stellar Transformations

Author: Steven Rybin

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2022-01-14

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 1978818335

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Stellar Transformations: Movie Stars of the 2010s circles around questions of stardom, performance, and their cultural contexts in ways that remind us of the alluring magic of stars while also bringing to the fore the changing ways in which viewers engaged with them during the last decade. A salient idea that guides much of the collection is the one of transformation, expressed in these pages as the way in which post-millennial movie stars are in one way or another reshaping ideas of performance and star presence, either through the self-conscious revision of aspects of their own personas or in redirecting or progressing some earlier aspect of the culture. Including a diverse lineup of stars such as Oscar Isaac, Kristen Stewart, Tilda Swinton, and Tyler Perry, the chapters in Stellar Transformations paint the portrait of the meaning of star images during the complex decade of the 2010s, and in doing so will offer useful case studies for scholars and students engaged in the study of stardom, celebrity, and performance in cinema.

A History of American Movies
A History of American Movies

Author: Paul Monaco

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2023-06-14

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 0810874393

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In A History of American Movies: A Film-by-Film Look at the Art, Craft and Business of Cinema, Paul Monaco provides a survey of the narrative feature film from the 1920s to the present. The book focuses on 170 of the most highly regarded and recognized feature films selected by the Hollywood establishment: each Oscar winner for Best Picture, as well as those voted the greatest by members of the American Film Institute. By focusing on a select group of films that represent the epitome of these collaborations, Monaco provides an essential history of one of the modern world's most complex and successful cultural institutions: Hollywood. Divided into three sections, "Classic Hollywood, 1927-1948," "Hollywood In Transition, 1949-1974," and "The New Hollywood, 1975 To The Present," Monaco examines some of the most memorable works in cinematic history, including The General, Wings, Bringing Up Baby, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, On the Waterfront, The Searchers, Psycho, West Side Story, The Godfat

Whose Lives Are They Anyway?
Whose Lives Are They Anyway?

Author: Dennis Bingham

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2010-03-04

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 0813549302

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The biopic presents a profound paradox—its own conventions and historical stages of development, disintegration, investigation, parody, and revival have not gained respect in the world of film studies. That is, until now. Whose Lives Are They Anyway? boldly proves a critical point: The biopic is a genuine, dynamic genre and an important one—it narrates, exhibits, and celebrates a subject's life and demonstrates, investigates, or questions his or her importance in the world; it illuminates the finer points of a personality; and, ultimately, it provides a medium for both artist and spectator to discover what it would be like to be that person, or a certain type of person. Through detailed analyses and critiques of nearly twenty biopics, Dennis Bingham explores what is at their core—the urge to dramatize real life and find a version of the truth within it. The genre's charge, which dates back to the salad days of the Hollywood studio era, is to introduce the biographical subject into the pantheon of cultural mythology and, above all, to show that he or she belongs there. It means to discover what we learn about our culture from the heroes who rise and the leaders who emerge from cinematic representations. Bingham also zooms in on distinctions between cinematic portrayals of men and women. Films about men have evolved from celebratory warts-and-all to investigatory to postmodern and parodic. At the same time, women in biopics have been burdened by myths of suffering, victimization, and failure from which they are only now being liberated. To explore the evolution and lifecycle changes of the biopic and develop an appreciation for subgenres contained within it, there is no better source than Whose Lives Are They Anyway?