Hollywood Recent Developments

by Thomsen, Christian W.

• ISBN13: 9783932565441
• ISBN10: 3932565444
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-12-15
• Publisher: Edition Axel Menges

Summary

In many years of collaboration a research group with scholars from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the United States has looked into the most recent developments of Hollywood and its movie productions of the 1990s and the first years of the new century. Technical and distributional questions of the film market played as important a part as those of transnationalisation and new digital technologies. Interdependences between computer games and movies are scrutinised and then, of course, focal points of thematic developments. They reach from remakes and blockbusters to Steven Soderbergh and the works of other independent filmmakers, from science fiction via old and new myths to questions of gender research. Hollywood's treatment of the most important political event and trauma of the new century, the terrorist attack of 11 September 2001 on the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center in war, action, science fiction and disaster movies is dealt with and also the new wave of documentary films (Michael Moore and others). The Pentagon's influence on the film industry has also to be seen in this context. A major focus of this book is dedicated to the interdisciplinary co-operation between film research, art history and architecture. The present study closes with articles about Hollywood and Las Vegas, American cinema architecture and the role of architecture in recent Hollywood movies.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 6
9/11. Before and after	p. 9
On the cutting edge. New visual languages in film-editing conventions in Hollywood	p. 28
The digital cinema dilemma. Obstacles to digitalizing the movie screens	p. 42
The digital world picture	p. 49
Making movies is like making cars, only more fun	p. 56
The transnationalization of Hollywood	p. 63
Negotiations of genre and gender in contemporary Hollywood film	p. 70
Deep impact. Emotion and performativity in contemporary blockbuster cinema	p. 76
Body Snatchers. Recycling in Hollywood	p. 85
Mixed realities. From HAL 9000 to The Matrix - computers and androids in contemporary science-fiction movies	p. 91
The recycling of myths in Hollywood science-fiction films, exemplified by Roland Emmerich's Stargate (1994), Luc Besson's The Fifth Element (1997) and Andrew Niccol's S1mOne (2002)	p. 106
Pentagon pictures. How Hollywood has its scripts censored by Washington	p. 120
Hollywood's new brand. Independent film production	p. 126
Hyperkinetic images. Hollywood and computer games	p. 135
Architecture and film. The reality play	p. 144
Cinema architecture in the United States	p. 175
Authentic replicas, or just like a Hollywood movie. Notes on the cinematized Las Vegas Strip	p. 184
References and notes	p. 195
Bibliography	p. 204
About the authors	p. 205
Photo credits	p. 207
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