Provides an up-to-date, insightful take on modern American cinema's relations with, and influence on Reagan's, Clinton's and both Bush's administrations. George W.Bush, Clinton and Ronald Reagan's relations are revealed with radical celebrities like Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Warren Beatty. It contains unique 'behind the scenes' stories and exclusive, revealing interviews with Hollywood celebrities. Described by Tony Garnett as 'an ambitious and refreshing book', "Hollywood's New Radicalism" is a timely and contentious account of the last twenty-five years of American cinema. Ben Dickenson tells the story of the corporate take-over of the movies in the 1970s, and the subsequent transformation of Hollywood into the dominant force in the global media industry. Writing from the intersection where politics, society and cinema meet, and using exclusive interviews with Hollywood personalities, he explores the radicalising effect of such changes on liberal filmmakers like Warren Beatty, Michael Moore and Sean Penn in the past decade. He demonstrates how left-wing messages smuggled their way into 1980s movies, found a fuller voice in independent American cinema during the 1990s and flirted with mainstream popularity at the start of the new millennium. Bringing the story up to and through the 2004 Presidential election, he reveals how important Hollywood figures have become key members of a vigorous left - wing opposition to George W. Bush's Presidency.

A controversial and fascinating rewriting of the history of cinema's golden age. Radical Hollywood is the first comprehensive history of the Hollywood Left. From the dawn of sound movies to the early 1950s, Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner trace the political and personal lives of the screenwriters, actors, directors, and producers on the Left and the often decisive impact of their work upon American film's Golden Age. Full of rich anecdotes, biographical detail, and explorations of movies well-known, unjustly forgotten, and delightfully bizarre, the book is "an intelligent, well argued and absorbing examination of how politics and art can make startling and often strange bedfellows" (Publishers Weekly). Featuring an insert of rare film stillsRadical Hollywood relates the story-behind-the-story of films in such genres as crime, women's films, family cinema, war, animation, and, particularly, film noir.

Hollywood Speaks Out explores that rare Hollywood feature that dared to tackle red-hot, social issues whilst American society was gripped by the convulsion and controversy they generated. Explores why Hollywood has always been risk-adverse, and how most feature flms deal with controversial issues long after the controversy is past Organized around such important issues as poverty, racism, sexism, war, anti-Semitism, and homophobia Discusses the relevance and the impact of feature films from Modern Times to WALL-E

In this engaging new book, Bradford Martin illuminates a different 1980s than many remember—one whose history has been buried under the celebratory narrative of conservative ascendancy. Ronald Reagan looms large in most accounts of the period, encouraging Americans to renounce the activist and liberal politics of the 1960s and ‘70s and embrace the resurgent conservative wave. But a closer look reveals that a sizable swath of Americans strongly disapproved of Reagan's policies throughout his presidency. With a weakened Democratic Party scurrying for the political center, many expressed their dissatisfaction outside electoral politics. Unlike the civil rights and Vietnam era protesters, activists of the 1980s often found themselves on the defensive, struggling to preserve the hard-won victories of the previous era. Their successes, then, were not in ushering in a new era of progressive reforms but in effecting change in areas from professional life to popular culture, while beating back an even more forceful political shift to the right. Martin paints an indelible portrait of these and other influential, but often overlooked, movements: from on-the-ground efforts to constrain the administration's aggressive Latin American policy and stave off a possible Nicaraguan war, to mock shanties constructed on college campuses to shed light on corporate America's role in supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa. The result is a clearer, richer perspective on a turbulent decade in American life.

Adopting and developing a ‘cultural politics’ approach, this comprehensive study explores how Hollywood movies generate and reflect political myths about social and personal life that profoundly influence how we understand power relations. Instead of looking at genre, it employs three broad categories of film. ‘Security’ films present ideas concerning public order and disorder, citizen–state relations and the politics of fear. ‘Relationalities’ films highlight personal and intimate politics, bringing norms about identities, gender and sexuality into focus. In ‘socially critical’ films, particular issues and ideas are endowed with more overtly political significance. The book considers these categories as global political technologies implicated in hegemonic and ‘soft power’ relations whose reach is both deep and broad.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq and the global recession of 2008 have contributed heavily to popular criticism of neoliberalism. This book investigates James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 (2009) and Elysium (2013), Len Wiseman’s Total Recall (2012) and the Wachowskis’ and Tom Tykwer’s independent epic Cloud Atlas (2012) to examine how far this model is critically interrogated in science fiction cinema. The subject is a critical one upon reflection of the role that a heavily ingrained allegiance to neoliberal and colonial discourse in mainstream politics and media has played in the rise of populist right-wing politics, growing worldwide income inequality, and, in particular, cultivating racist attitudes towards the Other.

Whether re-creating an actual event or simply being set in a bygone era, films have long taken liberties with the truth. While some members of the audience can appreciate a movie without being distracted by historical inaccuracies, other viewers are more discerning. From revered classics like Gone with the Wind to recent award winners like Argo, Hollywood films often are taken to task for their loose adherence to the facts. But what obligation do filmmakers have to the truth when trying to create a two-hour piece of entertainment? In Bringing History to Life through Film: The Art of Cinematic Storytelling, Kathryn Anne Morey brings together essays that explore the controversial issue of film as a purveyor of history. Examining a range of films, including highly regarded features like The Last of the Mohicans and Pan’s Labyrinth, as well as blockbuster franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean, chapters demonstrate that the debate surrounding the role of history on film is still as raw as ever. Organized in five sections, these essays discuss the myths and realities of history as they are portrayed on film, from “Nostalgic Utopias” to “Myths and Fairy Tales.” The fourteen chapters shed light on how films both convey and distort historical realities to capture the “essence” of the past rather than the past itself. Ultimately, they consider what role cinema plays as the quintessential historical storyteller. In addition to cinema and media studies, this book will appeal to scholars of history and fans of a wide range of cinematic genres.

From a near standing start in the 1970s, the emergence and expansion of an aesthetically and culturally distinctive Scottish cinema proved to be one of the most significant developments within late-twentieth and early twenty-first-century British film culture. Individual Scottish films and filmmakers have attracted notable amounts of critical attention as a result. The New Scottish Cinema, however, is the first book to trace Scottish film culture's industrial, creative and critical evolution in comprehensive detail across a forty-year period. On the one hand, it invites readers to reconsider the known - films such as Shallow Grave, Ratcatcher, The Magdalene Sisters, Young Adam, Red Road and The Last King of Scotland. On the other, it uncovers the overlooked, from the 1980s comedic film makers who followed in the footsteps of Bill Forsyth to the variety of present-day Scottish film making - a body of work that encompasses explorations of multiculturalism, exploitation of the macabre and much else in between.In addition to analysing an eclectic range of films and filmmakers, The New Scottish Cinema also examines the diverse industrial, institutional and cultural contexts which have allowed Scottish film to evolve and grow since the 1970s, and relates these to the images of Scotland which artists have put on screen. In so doing, the book narrates a story of interest to any student of contemporary British film.

This interdisciplinary study of how 9/11 and the 'war on terror' were represented during the Bush era, shows how culture often functioned as a vital resource, for citizens attempting to make sense of momentous historical events that frequently seemed beyond their influence or control.Illustrated throughout, the book discusses representation of 9/11 and the war on terror in Hollywood film, the 9/11 novel, mass media, visual art and photography, political discourse, and revisionist historical accounts of American 'empire,' between the September 11 attacks and the Congressional midterm elections in 2006. As well as prompting an international security crisis, and a crisis in international governance and law, David Holloway suggests the culture of the time also points to a 'crisis' unfolding in the institutions and processes of republican democracy in the United States. His book offers a cultural and ideological history of the period.

This is a clear and engrossing account of how popular films in America just after the close of the Second World War played out America's mood at that crucial time. It is also a revisionist challenge to received scholarly understanding of this mood, which has tended to be seen as characterized by an abiding pessimism most clearly manifested in the films noir of the period. Chopra-Gant makes here an important contribution to film genre, which proposes that the 'noir and Zeitgeist' reading is based on the retrospective promotion of selected movies. He turns to the top box office successes of the period, including "Best Years of our Lives", "The Jolson Story" and "Two Years Before the Mast", finding that these films emphasise rather the triumph of American beliefs in democracy, classlessness and individualism. They deploy positive, performative masculinities and the pleasures of male friendships and celebrate the traditional American family, while recognising the problems of 'momism' and absent fathers.