"I can think of no topic more central to Film Studies than 'Cinema and Modernity.' Facet after facet of both terms gleam when rotated in the intermittent light of this fascinating anthology." --Dudley Andrew, Professor of Film Studies and Comparative Literature, Yale University

The modern impulse gave us captivating technology and dark anxiety, rampant mobility and a world filled with strangers, the futuristic city and a fragmentation of experience. Into this amalgamation of cultural, technical, and philosophical richness came motion pictures-the quintessence of modernism-with a vast public appeal and a jarring new vision of what life could be.

In Cinema and Modernity, Murray Pomerance brings together new essays by seventeen leading scholars to explore the complexity of the essential connection between film and modernity. Among the many films considered are Detour, Shock Corridor, The Last Laugh, Experiment in Terror, The Great Dictator, Leave Her to Heaven, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Eyes Wide Shut, Sunrise, The Crowd, The Shape of Things to Come, The War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Scarlet Street, Shadow of a Doubt, Stella Dallas, The Blue Angel, Sullivan's Travels, and Catch Me If You Can.

Whether by displaying new gender and class identities, by describing relations between the individual and the state, or by illuminating the speed and freneticism that was rapidly becoming a part of everyday life, this volume shows us the significant ways that film has both grown in the context of the modern world and played a central role in reflecting and shaping our interactions with it.

Murray Pomerance is a professor and chair in the sociology department at Ryerson University in Toronto. He is the coeditor of the Screen Decades series and the author of numerous books, including Johnny Depp Starts Here and An Eye for Hitchcock.