|
Movies
and Mass Culture
Price:
$23.95
Author:
John Belton
Subject:
Film Studies/Communications Studies
Paper ISBN
0-8135-2228-5
Pages: 279
pp. 15 b&w illus.
Series:
Rutgers
Depth of Field
Movies and Mass
Culture looks at the ways in which American identity shapes and is shaped
by motion pictures. Movies serve not only as texts that document who we
think we are or were, but they also reflect changes in our self-image,
tracing the transformation from one kind of America to another. They assist
audiences in negotiating major changes in identity, carrying them across
difficult periods of cultural transition so that a more or less coherent
national identity again emerges. Films thus help their viewers to span
the gaps and fissures that cultural changes cause, allowing passage over
any disjointedness that in some way might disrupt our sense of what we
believe in as a nation. This volume examines this process, illustrating
the ways in which films aided America's transition from an agrarian to
an industrial economy; from a nation of producers to one of consumers;
and from a community of individuals to a mass society.
The contributors
are John Belton, Mary Ann Doane, Charles Eckert, Sylvia Harvey, bell hooks,
Fredric Jameson, Lary May, Martin Rubin, Paul Schrader, Clyde Taylor, and
Robin Wood.
John Belton
is a professor of English at Rutgers University and author of Widescreen
Cinema and American Cinema/American Culture.
Receive
special offers and book notices by email. Sign up for RU READING?
Price:
$23.95
|
