American Cinema/American Culture

by Belton, John

• ISBN13: 9780073535098
• ISBN10: 0073535095
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-01-11
• Publisher: MCGRAW

Summary

American Cinema/American Culturelooks at the interplay between American cinema and mass culture from the 1890s to 2011. It begins with an examination of the basic narrative and stylistic features of classical Hollywood cinema. It then studies the genres of silent melodrama, the musical, American comedy, the war/combat film, film noir, the western, and the horror and science fiction film, investigating the way in which movies shape and are shaped by the larger cultural concerns of the nation as a whole. The book concludes with a discussion of post World War II Hollywood, giving separate chapter coverage to the effects of the Cold War, 3D, television, the counterculture of the 1960s, directors from the film school generation, and the cultural concerns of Hollywood from the 1970s through 2011. Ideal for Introduction to American Cinema courses, American Film History courses, and Introductory Film Appreciation courses, this text provides a culturaloverview of the phenomenon of the American movie-going experience. An updated study guide is also available for American Cinema/American Culture. Written by Ed Sikov, this guide introduces each topic with an explanatory overview written in more informal language, suggests screenings and readings, and offers self-tests.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part 1 The Mode of Production

Chapter 1 The Emergence of the Cinema as an Institution

Chapter 2 Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narration

Chapter 3 Classical Hollywood Cinema: Style

Chapter 4 The Studio System

Chapter 5 The Star System

Part 2 Genre and The Genre System

Chapter 6 Silent Film Melodrama

Chapter 7 The Musical

Chapter 8 American Comedy

Chapter 9 War and Cinema

Chapter 10 Film Noir: Somewhere in the Night

Chapter 11 The Making of the West

Chapter 12 Horror and Science Fiction

Part 3 A Postwar History

Chapter 13 Hollywood and the Cold War

Chapter 14 Hollywood in the Age of Television

Chapter 15 The 1960s: The Counterculture Strikes Back

Chapter 16 The Film School Generation

Chapter 17 Into the Twenty-First Century

Glossary of Technical and Other Terms

Index