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Author: Claire Perkins
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 2013-01-14
Total Pages: 193
ISBN-13: 0748654259
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAmerican Smart Cinema examines a contemporary type of US filmmaking that exists at the intersection of mainstream, art and independent cinema and often gives rise to absurd, darkly comic and nihilistic effects.
Author: Claire Elizabeth Perkins
Publisher:
Published: 2013
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 9781784022884
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAmerican Smart Cinema examines a contemporary type of US filmmaking that exists at the intersection of mainstream, art and independent cinema and often gives rise to absurd, darkly comic and nihilistic effects.
Author: Terence McSweeney
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 2016-12-05
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 1474413838
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAmerican Cinema in the Shadow of 9/11 is a ground-breaking collection of essays by some of the foremost scholars writing in the field of contemporary American film. Through a dynamic critical analysis of the defining films of the turbulent post-9/11 decade, the volume explores and interrogates the impact of 9/11 and the 'War on Terror' on American cinema and culture. In a vibrant discussion of films like American Sniper (2014), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Spectre (2015), The Hateful Eight (2015), Lincoln (2012), The Mist (2007), Children of Men (2006), Edge of Tomorrow (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), noted authors Geoff King, Guy Westwell, John Shelton Lawrence, Ian Scott, Andrew Schopp, James Kendrick, Sean Redmond, Steffen Hantke and many others consider the power of popular film to function as a potent cultural artefact, able to both reflect the defining fears and anxieties of the tumultuous era, but also shape them in compelling and resonant ways.
Author: Kim Wilkins
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2019-02-21
Total Pages: 224
ISBN-13: 1501336932
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSince the late 1990s a new language has emerged in film scholarship and criticism in response to the popularity of American directors such as Wes Anderson, Charlie Kaufman, and David O. Russell. Increasingly, adjectives like 'quirky', 'cute', and 'smart' are used to describe these American films, with a focus on their ironic (and sometimes deliberately comical) stories, character situations and tones. Kim Wilkins argues that, beyond the seemingly superficial descriptions, 'American eccentric cinema' presents a formal and thematic eccentricity that is distinct to the American context. She distinguishes these films from mainstream Hollywood cinema as they exhibit irregularities in characterization, tone, and setting, and deviate from established generic conventions. Each chapter builds a case for this position through detailed film analyses and comparisons to earlier American traditions, such as the New Hollywood cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. American Eccentric Cinema promises to challenge the notion of irony in American contemporary cinema, and questions the relationship of irony to a complex national and individual identity.
Author: P. Brereton
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2012-05-30
Total Pages: 265
ISBN-13: 1137027088
DOWNLOAD EBOOKExamining post-1990s Indie cinema alongside more mainstream films, Brereton explores the emergence of smart independent sensibility and how films break the classic linear narratives that have defined Hollywood and its alternative 'art' cinema. The work explores how bonus features on contemporary smart films speak to new generational audiences.
Author: Kim Wilkins
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2019-02-21
Total Pages: 224
ISBN-13: 1501336924
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSince the late 1990s a new language has emerged in film scholarship and criticism in response to the popularity of American directors such as Wes Anderson, Charlie Kaufman, and David O. Russell. Increasingly, adjectives like 'quirky', 'cute', and 'smart' are used to describe these American films, with a focus on their ironic (and sometimes deliberately comical) stories, character situations and tones. Kim Wilkins argues that, beyond the seemingly superficial descriptions, 'American eccentric cinema' presents a formal and thematic eccentricity that is distinct to the American context. She distinguishes these films from mainstream Hollywood cinema as they exhibit irregularities in characterization, tone, and setting, and deviate from established generic conventions. Each chapter builds a case for this position through detailed film analyses and comparisons to earlier American traditions, such as the New Hollywood cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. American Eccentric Cinema promises to challenge the notion of irony in American contemporary cinema, and questions the relationship of irony to a complex national and individual identity.
Author: Todd Berliner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2017
Total Pages: 321
ISBN-13: 0190658746
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHollywood makes the most widely successful pleasure-giving artworks the world has ever known. The industry operates under the assumption that pleasurable aesthetic experiences, among huge populations, translate into box office success. With that goal in mind, Hollywood has systematized the delivery of aesthetic pleasure, packaging and selling it on a massive scale. In Hollywood Aesthetic, Todd Berliner accounts for the chief attraction of Hollywood cinema worldwide: its entertainment value. The book examines films such as City Lights and Goodfellas that have earned aesthetic appreciation from both fans and critics. But it also studies some curious outliers, cult films, and celebrated Hollywood experiments, such as The Killing and Starship Troopers. And it demonstrates that even ordinary popular films, from Tarzan and His Mate to Rocky III, as well as action blockbusters, like Die Hard and The Dark Knight, offer aesthetic pleasure to mass audiences. Hollywood Aesthetic explains how Hollywood engages viewers by satisfying their aesthetic desires. Visit the companion website at www.oup.com/us/hollywoodaesthetic
Author: Jon Lewis
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2007-10-22
Total Pages: 425
ISBN-13: 0822390132
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFilm scholarship has long been dominated by textual interpretations of specific films. Looking Past the Screen advances a more expansive American film studies in which cinema is understood to be a social, political, and cultural phenomenon extending far beyond the screen. Presenting a model of film studies in which films themselves are only one source of information among many, this volume brings together film histories that draw on primary sources including collections of personal papers, popular and trade journalism, fan magazines, studio publications, and industry records. Focusing on Hollywood cinema from the teens to the 1970s, these case studies show the value of this extraordinary range of historical materials in developing interdisciplinary approaches to film stardom, regulation, reception, and production. The contributors examine State Department negotiations over the content of American films shown abroad; analyze the star image of Clara Smith Hamon, who was notorious for having murdered her lover; and consider film journalists’ understanding of the arrival of auteurist cinema in Hollywood as it was happening during the early 1970s. One contributor chronicles the development of film studies as a scholarly discipline; another offers a sociopolitical interpretation of the origins of film noir. Still another brings to light Depression-era film reviews and Production Code memos so sophisticated in their readings of representations of sexuality that they undermine the perception that queer interpretations of film are a recent development. Looking Past the Screen suggests methods of historical research, and it encourages further thought about the modes of inquiry that structure the discipline of film studies. Contributors. Mark Lynn Anderson, Janet Bergstrom, Richard deCordova, Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, Sumiko Higashi, Jon Lewis, David M. Lugowski, Dana Polan, Eric Schaefer, Andrea Slane, Eric Smoodin, Shelley Stamp
Author: Raymond J. HaberskiJr.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2014-10-17
Total Pages: 264
ISBN-13: 0813158990
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOnce derided as senseless entertainment, movies have gradually assumed a place among the arts. Raymond Haberski's provocative and insightful book traces the trajectory of this evolution throughout the twentieth century, from nickelodeon amusements to the age of the financial blockbuster. Haberski begins by looking at the barriers to film's acceptance as an art form, including the Chicago Motion Picture Commission hearings of 1918--1920, one of the most revealing confrontations over the use of censorship in the motion picture industry. He then examines how movies overcame the stigma attached to popular entertainment through such watershed events as the creation of the Museum of Modern Art's Film Library in the 1920s. The arguments between Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris's heralded a golden age of criticism, and Haberski focuses on the roles of Kael, Sarris, James Agee, Roger Ebert, and others, in the creation of "cinephilia." Described by Susan Sontag as "born of the conviction that cinema was an art unlike any other," this love of cinema centered on coffee houses, universities, art theaters, film festivals, and, of course, foreign films. The lively debates over the place of movies in American culture began to wane in the 1970s. Haberski places the blame on the loss of cultural authority and on the increasing irrelevance of the meaning of art. He concludes with a persuasive call for the re-emergence of a middle ground between art and entertainment, "something more complex, ambiguous, and vexing -- something worth thought."
Author: Timothy Corrigan
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 2012-04-15
Total Pages: 289
ISBN-13: 0813553237
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe 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.
