Hollywood has a growing fascination with America's past. This book offers an analysis of how and why contemporary Hollywood films have sought to mediate American history. It considers whether or how far contemporary films have begun to unravel the unifying myths of earlier films and periods.

Hollywood has a growing fascination with America's past. This is evidenced in the release of a rash of films of this genre in the past 25 years. This book offers an analysis of how and why contemporary Hollywood films have sought to mediate American history. It is the first book to explore, comprehensively, the post-Cold War period of film-making, and to consider whether or how far contemporary films have begun to unravel the unifying myths of earlier films and periods. It also considers why such films are becoming increasingly integral to the ambitions of a globally-focused American film industry. The relationship between film and history - the way in which film mediates history and vice versa - is a complex one. In this book, the authors work from two main assumptions. First, that films revision events to challenge or, perhaps more typically, to reaffirm traditional historical interpretations. Second, that this process can only be understood in the context of contemporary debates about identity politics, America's role in world affairs, and the globalisation of the American film business. The book is structured by historical periods and includes chapters on: The American Revolution (Revolution, The Patriot) Slavery (Roots, Amistad) The Civil War (Gettysburg,Glory,Ride with the Devil, Cold Mountain) World War II (Saving Private Ryan, Thin Red Line, Pearl Harbor) Oliver Stone and the Decade of Trauma (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Heaven and Earth, Nixon) Civil Rights and Black Nationalism (Panther, Mississippi Burning, The Hurricane, Malcolm X, Ali) American Interventionism (Three Kings, Black Hawk Down) Key Features Unique: the only book to provide comprehensive analysis of the relationship between film and American history in the post-Cold War era Topical: explores the relationship between cinema, representation and national identity Accessible: analyses a broad range of popular, mainstream films which engage with well-known historical events Uses cultural theory to help consider the complex relationship between film and history Engages with the contentious issue of the extent to which film distorts/ revisions historical 'truths'

A comprehensive overview of the film industry in Hollywood today, Contemporary Hollywood Cinema brings together leading international cinema scholars to explore the technology, institutions, film makers and movies of contemporary American film making.

" a modern mythography, a study of contemporary Hollywood films based on the tools offered by feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxist cultural theory, and deconstruction." --Village Voice "Solidly thought-out observation of the films of the 70's and 80's that comment on the system." --Audience "... intelligent, open advocacy. Its responsible arrangement of carefully described cultural materials will challenge students and instructors alike." --Teaching Philosophy Camera Politica is a comprehensive study of Hollywood film during a period of tremendous change in American history, a period that witnessed the end of the American empire, crises in the economy, a failure of political leadership, loss at war, and the rise of the Right.

Explores contemporary American films that challenge official history. Our movies have started talking back to us, and Film Nation takes a close look at what they have to say. In movies like JFK and Forrest Gump, Robert Burgoyne sees a filmic extension of the debates that exercise us as a nation -- debates about race and culture and national identity, about the nature and makeup of American history. In analyses of five films that challenge the traditional myths of the nation-state -- Glory, Thunderheart, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, and Forrest Gump -- Burgoyne explores the reshaping of our collective imaginary in relation to our history. These movies, exploring the meaning of "nation" from below, highlight issues of power that underlie the narrative construction of nationhood. Film Nation exposes the fault lines between national myths and the historical experience of people typically excluded from those myths. Throughout, Burgoyne demonstrates that these films, in their formal design, also preserve relics of the imaginary past they contest. Here we see how the "genre memory" of the western, the war film, and the melodrama shapes these films, creating a complex exchange between old concepts of history and the alternative narratives of historical experience that contemporary texts propose. The first book to apply theories of nationalism and national identity to contemporary American films, Film Nation reveals the cinematic rewriting of history now taking place as a powerful attempt to rearticulate the cultural narratives that define America as a nation.

The Persistence of Whiteness investigates the representation and narration of race in contemporary Hollywood cinema. Ideologies of class, ethnicity, gender, nation and sexuality are central concerns as are the growth of the business of filmmaking. Focusing on representations of Black, Asian, Jewish, Latina/o and Native Americans identities, this collection also shows how whiteness is a fact everywhere in contemporary Hollywood cinema, crossing audiences, authors, genres, studios and styles. Bringing together essays from respected film scholars, the collection covers a wide range of important films, including Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Color Purple, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. Essays also consider genres from the western to blaxploitation and new black cinema; provocative filmmakers such as Melvin Van Peebles and Steven Spielberg and stars including Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Lopez. Daniel Bernardi provides an in-depth introduction, comprehensive bibliography and a helpful glossary of terms, thus providing students with an accessible and topical collection on race and ethnicity in contemporary cinema.

While the myth of a classless America endures in the American Dream, the very stratification that it denies unfairly affects the majority of Americans. Study after study shows that it's increasingly difficult for working class people to achieve upward mobility in the US - so how does the American Dream continue to thrive? J. Emmett Winn shows us that the American Dream's continued glorification in contemporary Hollywood cinema should not be ignored. The book explicates three major themes surrounding the American Dream in contemporary Hollywood cinema and relates those findings to the United States' social and cultural changes in the last 25 years. Through his thoughtful analysis of films as diverse as Working Girl, Titanic, Pretty Woman, Flashdance, The Firm, Good Will Hunting, Saturday Night Fever, Wall Street and many others, Winn shows that contemporary Hollywood is very much in the business of keeping the Dream alive.

In High Contrast, Sharon Willis examines the dynamic relationships between racial and sexual difference in Hollywood film from the 1980s and 1990s. Seizing on the way these differences are accentuated, sensationalized, and eroticized on screen--most often with little apparent regard for the political context in which they operate--Willis restores that context through close readings of a range of movies from cinematic blockbusters to the work of the new auteurs, Spike Lee, David Lynch, and Quentin Tarantino. Capturing the political complexity of these films, Willis argues that race, gender, and sexuality, as they are figured in the fantasy of popular film, do not function separately, but rather inform and determine each other's meaning. She demonstrates how collective anxieties regarding social difference are mapped onto big budget movies like the Die Hard and Lethal Weapon series, Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, Thelma and Louise, Terminator 2, and others. Analyzing the artistic styles of directors Lynch, Tarantino, and Lee, in such films as Wild at Heart, Pulp Fiction, and Do the Right Thing, she investigates how these interactions of difference are linked to the production of specific authorial styles, and how race functions for each of these directors, particularly in relation to gender identity, erotics, and fantasy.

Considers the history of the American blockbuster—the large-scale, high-cost film—as it evolved from the 1890s to today. The pantheon of big-budget, commercially successful films encompasses a range of genres, including biblical films, war films, romances, comic-book adaptations, animated features, and historical epics. In Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History authors Sheldon Hall and Steve Neale discuss the characteristics, history, and modes of distribution and exhibition that unite big-budget pictures, from their beginnings in the late nineteenth century to the present. Moving chronologically, the authors examine the roots of today's blockbuster in the "feature," "special," "superspecial," "roadshow," "epic," and "spectacle" of earlier eras, with special attention to the characteristics of each type of picture. In the first section, Hall and Neale consider the beginnings of features, specials, and superspecials in American cinema, as the terms came to define not the length of a film but its marketable stars or larger budget. The second section investigates roadshowing as a means of distributing specials and the changes to the roadshow that resulted from the introduction of synchronized sound in the 1920s. In the third section, the authors examine the phenomenon of epics and spectacles that arose from films like Gone with the Wind, Samson and Deliliah, and Spartacus and continues to evolve today in films like Spider-Man and Pearl Harbor. In this section, Hall and Neale consider advances in visual and sound technology and the effects and costs they introduced to the industry. Scholars of film and television studies as well as readers interested in the history of American moviemaking will enjoy Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters.

“A commendably comprehensive analysis of the issue of Hollywood’s ability to shape our minds . . . invigorating reading.” ?Booklist Film has exerted a pervasive influence on the American mind, and in eras of economic instability and international conflict, the industry has not hesitated to use motion pictures for propaganda purposes. During less troubled times, citizens’ ability to deal with political and social issues may be enhanced or thwarted by images absorbed in theaters. Tracking the interaction of Americans with important movie productions, this book considers such topics as racial and sexual stereotyping; censorship of films; comedy as a tool for social criticism; the influence of “great men” and their screen images; and the use of film to interpret history. Hollywood As Historian benefits from a variety of approaches. Literary and historical influences are carefully related to The Birth of a Nation and Apocalypse Now, two highly tendentious epics of war and cultural change. How political beliefs of filmmakers affected cinematic styles is illuminated in a short survey of documentary films made during the Great Depression. Historical distance has helped analysts decode messages unintended by filmmakers in the study of The Snake Pit and Dr. Strangelove. Hollywood As Historian offers a versatile, thought-provoking text for students of popular culture, American studies, film history, or film as history. Films considered include: The Birth of a Nation (1915), The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936), The River (1937), March of Time (1935-1953), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Native Land (1942), Wilson (1944), The Negro Soldier (1944), The Snake Pit (1948), On the Waterfront (1954), Dr. Strangelove (1964), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), and Apocalypse Now (1979). “Recommended reading for anyone concerned with the influence of popular culture on the public perception of history.” ?American Journalism