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American Cinema of the 2010s
The 2010s were perhaps the most tumultuous decade since the 1960s. The effects of the Great Recession continued to be felt. The administration of Barack Obama, the first African-American president, encouraged many to think that America was now 'post-racial', an illusion broken by the election of Donald Trump. Polarisation reigned, communicated on social media. Netflix and Amazon jumped into production. By 2019, Netflix produced more feature films than the traditional studios combined. Cinema's move from film to digital, in production and in exhibition, was complete by mid-decade. `MeToo and `Oscarssowhite signaled a reckoning with gross gender and racial inequalities in the media, matched by that in the wider culture. The essays of this book explore the blockbusters, low-budget sleepers, and films in between.
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American Cinema of the 1910s
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 inAmerican Cinema of the 1910sexplore 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.
eBook
American Cinema of the 1990s
With the U.S. economy booming under President Bill Clinton and the cold war finally over, many Americans experienced peace and prosperity in the nineties. Digital technologies gained popularity, with nearly one billion people online by the end of the decade. The film industry wondered what the effect on cinema would be.
The essays inAmerican Cinema of the 1990sexamine the big-budget blockbusters and critically acclaimed independent films that defined the decade. The 1990s' most popular genre, action, channeled anxieties about global threats such as AIDS and foreign terrorist attacks into escapist entertainment movies. Horror films and thrillers were on the rise, but family-friendly pictures and feel-good romances netted big audiences too. Meanwhile, independent films captured hearts, engaged minds, and invaded Hollywood: by decade's end every studio boasted its own \"art film\" affiliate.
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Fictions Inc
Fictions Inc.explores how depictions of the corporation in American literature, film, and popular culture have changed over time. Beginning with perhaps the most famous depiction of a corporation-Frank Norris'sThe Octopus-Ralph Clare traces this figure as it shifts from monster to man, from force to \"individual,\" and from American industry to multinational \"Other.\" Clare examines a variety of texts that span the second half of the twentieth century and beyond, including novels by Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, Don DeLillo, Richard Powers, and Joshua Ferris; films such asNetwork,Ghostbusters,Gung Ho,Office Space, andMichael Clayton; and assorted artifacts of contemporary media such as television'sThe Officeand the comic stripsLife Is HellandDilbert.
Paying particular attention to the rise of neoliberalism, the emergence of biopolitics, and the legal status of \"corporate bodies,\"Fictions Inc.shows that representations of corporations have come to serve, whether directly or indirectly, as symbols for larger economic concerns often too vast or complex to comprehend. Whether demonized or lionized, the corporation embodies American anxieties about these current conditions and ongoing fears about the viability of a capitalist system.
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American Cinema
At the turn of the twentieth century, cinema was quickly establishing itself as a legitimate form of popular entertainment.
The essays inAmerican Cinema 1890-1909explore and define how the making of motion pictures flowered into an industry that would finally become the central entertainment institution of the world. Beginning with all the early types of pictures that moved, this volume tells the story of the invention and consolidation of the various processes that gave rise to what we now call \"cinema.\" By examining the battles over patents, production, exhibition, and the reception of film, readers learn how going to the movies became a social tradition in American society.
In the course of these two decades, cinema succeeded both in establishing itself among other entertainment and instructional media and in updating various forms of spectacle.
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American Cinema of the 2000s
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. ]]>
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American Cinema of the 1920s
During the 1920s, sound revolutionized the motion picture industry and cinema continued as one of the most significant and popular forms of mass entertainment in the world. Film studios were transformed into major corporations, hiring a host of craftsmen and technicians including cinematographers, editors, screenwriters, and set designers. The birth of the star system supported the meteoric rise and celebrity status of actors including Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, and Rudolph Valentino while black performers (relegated to \"race films\") appeared infrequently in mainstream movies. The classic Hollywood film style was perfected and significant film genres were established: the melodrama, western, historical epic, and romantic comedy, along with slapstick, science fiction, and fantasy.
In ten original essays,American Cinema of the 1920sexamines the film industry's continued growth and prosperity while focusing on important themes of the era.
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American Smart Cinema
American 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.
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