American Film Studies Commons^™

Scott, Ian. American Politics In Hollywood Film (Book Review), James Castonguay

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Book review by James Castonguay.

Scott, Ian. American Politics in Hollywood Film. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. ISBN 9780748640249, ISBN 9780748640232 (pbk.)

Winning It All: The Cinematic Construction Of The Athletic American Dream, Andrew Miller

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Powered by a philosophy of self-determination and an ideology of a level playing field, the Athletic American Dream has become firmly entrenched in American culture. Following narrative pattterns influenced by both newspaper sports sections and juvenile sports fiction, it coalesces around underdog-to-champion, hard-work-leads-to-victory narratives that shape the sporting imagination and help to forge the masculine ideal that is the foundation of American self-image. The Athletic American Dream is produced, packaged and sold by mass media so successfully that one could argue that it becomes the most dominant vision of the American Dream by the end of the twentieth century.

Orson Welles: Interviews (Book Review), Sidney Gottlieb

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Book review by Sid Gottlieb.

Estrin, Mark W. "Orson Welles: Interviews." Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi, 2002. ISBN 9781578062089

The Political Economy Of The Indie Blockbuster: Fandom, Intermediality, And The Blair Witch Project, James Castonguay

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

The primary focus of this chapter is on what could be broadly described as The Blair Witch Project's political economy. This includes a consideration of the film's relationship to patterns of ownership and the economic structures of film production, distribution, and marketing within the structure of the entertainment industry and in the context of its critical and popular reception. The second half of the essay historicizes BWP in relation to film production and exhibition in the 1890s, and concludes with an examination of its mythic status as an independent film that threatened to undermine Hollywood's blockbuster paradigm. By placing …

'Good Little Bad Girls': Controversy And The Flapper Comedienne, Sara Ross

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

In the late 1910s and early 1920s, the American film industry experimented with variety of new and timely female types which in some way challenged the sexual status quo, including the bohemian feminist, the madcap, the baby vamp and the flapper. Whether drawn from the headlines, adapted from best-selling novels or hot Broadway plays, or created for the screen, these characters had the potential to generate both strong box office, and controversy and censorship.

Hollywood Goes To Washington: Scandal, Politics, And Contemporary Media Culture, James Castonguay

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Hollywood has long been associated with scandal--with covering it up, with managing its effects, and, in some cases, with creating and directing it. In putting together Headline Hollywood, Adrienne McLean and David Cook approach the relationship between Hollywood and scandal from a fresh perspective. The contributors consider some of the famous transgressions that shocked Hollywood and its audiences during the last century, and explore the changing meaning of scandal over time by zeroing in on issues of power: Who decides what crimes and misdemeanors should be circulated for public consumption and titillation? What makes a Hollywood scandal scandalous? What are …

Cowboy Wonderland, History, And Myth: 'It Ain't All That Different Than Real Life, William G. Simon, Louise Spence

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson was Robert Altman's bicentennial film. Released for the Fourth of July weekend in 1976, the film examines the western both as a national myth and as a commercial entertainment form; indeed, one might see the film's project as an expos? of the ideological functioning of the western, its white male hero, and the Native American in nearly 100 years of American popular culture.

Citizen Kane: American Heroes And Witnesses, Sidney Gottlieb

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Citizen Kane is in no danger of being dislodged from its place as one of the most respected films of all time, but it is in danger of losing its vitality as a film with meaning as well as impressive visual appeal. When we call Kane to mind, we no doubt remember stunning scenes and cinematic images: the close-up of Kane's lips filling the screen, whispering "Rosebud"; the breakfast-table montage sequence that in a few short minutes tells virtually all we need to know of the history of Kane's first marriage; the deep-focus shots of Susan and Kane dwarfed by …