Celluloid Mirrors Hollywood and American Society Since 1945

by Davis, Ronald L.

• ISBN13: 9780155015685
• ISBN10: 0155015680
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-08-02
• Publisher: Cengage Learning

Summary

CELLULOID MIRRORS is an exciting new survey of major developments in American filmmaking since 1945. Coverage includes changes in film content, alterations in the business structure of Hollywood, shifts in theater design, the impact of television, and Hollywood's enduring mystique. This supplement is appropriate for a variety of courses, including American History Survey courses, Modern America History courses, American Cultural History, Film History, and Popular Culture.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
The Decline of the Big Studios	1	(26)
The 1945-1946 Strikes	3	(3)
HUAC Investigations and the Blacklist	6	(7)
The Divorcement Decrees	13	(1)
The Move to Suburbia	14	(1)
The Advent of Television	15	(1)
Meeting the Challenge	16	(3)
Changes at Home and Abroad	19	(4)
Conclusion	23	(4)
A Search for new Markets	27	(40)
Hollywood in Despair	30	(2)
Spectacles and Distant Locations	32	(4)
The Challenge from Foreign Films and Art Houses	36	(2)
Reaching for Mature Audiences	38	(2)
Breaking with Tradition	40	(3)
Appealing to the Teenage Market	43	(5)
Roger Corman, New King of the B's	48	(2)
The Science Fiction Craze	50	(2)
Recognition of Black Audiences	52	(3)
The Marriage with Television	55	(6)
Making the Most of Less	61	(2)
Conclusion	63	(4)
Tangles of Conglomerates	67	(30)
MCA and Universal	70	(2)
Paramount and Gulf+Western	72	(1)
From Warner Bros. To Time Warner	73	(1)
Columbia, Coca-Cola, and Sony	74	(7)
The Eclipse of MGM	81	(3)
United Artists and Transamerica	84	(2)
Twentieth Century-Fox, the Last Independent Major	86	(3)
New Directions for Disney	89	(1)
The Appearance of Mini-Majors	90	(2)
Conclusion	92	(5)
Popular Culture to Counterculture and Back	97	(36)
The Darkening Mood	98	(3)
New Wave Influences	101	(3)
The New Rating System	104	(3)
The Youth Market	107	(4)
The Discovery of Minorities	111	(3)
Protests against the Vietnam War	114	(1)
Hollywood in the Doldrums	115	(1)
Disaster and the Occult	116	(2)
The Movie Brats	118	(7)
Bogdanovich and Allen	125	(1)
The Quest for a New Identity	126	(3)
Conclusion	129	(4)
Movie Palaces, Shopping Malls, and Multiplexes	133	(16)
Retreat to the Malls	135	(3)
New Theater Chains	138	(2)
Cineplex Odeon	140	(1)
The Studios' Return to Exhibition	141	(1)
A Thriving Business	142	(3)
Ancillary Markets	145	(1)
Conclusion	146	(3)
Return to Entertainment	149	(28)
Recoil to Conservation	151	(3)
Thrills, Spills, and Special Effects	154	(1)
Courting the Teen Market	155	(2)
Later Developments of the Movie Brats	157	(4)
Oliver Stone: Relevance and Subjectivity	161	(1)
Social Comment and Historical Revision	162	(2)
Attention to Minorities	164	(4)
Sex, Violence, Nudity, and Profanity	168	(1)
Discovering the Australian Cinema	169	(2)
More Actors than Stars	171	(1)
Conclusion	172	(5)
The Small Screen	177	(40)
The Shift from New York to Hollywood	179	(2)
The Placid Fifties	181	(9)
The Turbulent Sixties	190	(7)
The Innovative Seventies	197	(10)
The Somnambulistic Eighties	207	(5)
Into the Nineties	212	(2)
Conclusion	214	(3)
Hollywood's Enduring Mystique	217	(16)
The Reality: Urban Blight	220	(1)
A Precarious Business	221	(3)
Less a Place than a Concept	224	(1)
The Blurred Line between Reality and Fantasy	224	(2)
Example: The O.J. Simpson Case	226	(5)
Conclusion	231	(2)
Bibliography	233	(11)
Index	244