End of Cinema As We Know It : American Film in the Nineties

by Lewis, Jon

• ISBN13: 9780814751602
• ISBN10: 0814751601
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-12-01
• Publisher: New York University Press

Summary

"Brief on brilliant cocktail conversation? This reader-friendly collection will help you apply Foucault to Keanu, Derrida to Spielberg, Macbeth to Blair Witch, and pull it off with panache. Stimulating in small doses, its 34 essays deconstruct 1990s cinema, and the decade too, with intellectual vigor and a wry sense of humor." --Variety "The End of Cinema As We Know It is at once academic and popular in the best sense of both terms-intelligent and erudite critical analysis conveyed through accessible and gracefully written prose. Just like the cinema of the '90s itself, this collection of thirty-four smart and sprightly essays refuses to be bound by traditional categories. Free from the homogenized consensus that too often results from the supposed advantage of historical distance, these broadly ranging essays on a period still fresh in our memory necessarily pose more questions than they answer. But they are good provocative questions and it is precisely this spirit of free-wheeling inquiry and fearless speculation that makes the book so enjoyable to read."-Robert Rosen, Dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television"The End of Cinemaprovides an enjoyable reading with a good balance of academic and popular qualities." --American Studies International, June 2002 "The End of Cinema as We Know It: American Cinema in the Nineties, is an encouraging step in a new direction. In it, we find an impressive assembly of established as well as younger scholars grappling both with pop-film and industry concerns." --CineasteAlmost half a century ago, Jean-Luc Godard famously remarked, "I await the end of cinema with optimism." Lots of us have been waiting for and wondering about this prophecy ever since. The way films are made and exhibited has changed significantly. Films, some of which are not exactly "films" anymore, can now be projected in a wide variety of ways on screens in revamped high tech theaters, on big, high-resolution TVs, on little screens in minivans and laptops. But with all this new gear, all these new ways of viewing films, are we necessarily getting different, better movies? The thirty-four brief essays inThe End of Cinema as We Know Itattend a variety of topics, from film censorship and preservation to the changing structure and status of independent cinema from the continued importance of celebrity and stardom to the sudden importance of alternative video. While many of the contributors explore in detail the pictures that captured the attention of the nineties film audience, such asJurassic Park,Eyes Wide Shut,South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut,The Wedding Banquet,The Matrix,Independence Day,Gods and Monsters,The Nutty Professor, andKids, several essays consider works that fall outside the category of film as it is conventionally defined the home "movie" of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee's honeymoon and the amateur video of the LAPD beating of Rodney King. Examining key films and filmmakers, the corporate players and industry trends, film styles and audio-visual technologies, the contributors to this volume spell out the end of cinema in terms of irony, cynicism and exhaustion, religious fundamentalism and fanaticism, and the decline of what we once used to call film culture. Contributors include: Paul Arthur, Wheeler Winston Dixon, Thomas Doherty, Thomas Elsaesser, Krin Gabbard, Henry Giroux, Heather Hendershot, Jan-Christopher Hook, Alexandra Juhasz, Charles Keil, Chuck Klienhans, Jon Lewis, Eric S. Mallin, Laura U. Marks, Kathleen McHugh, Pat Mellencamp, Jerry Mosher, Hamid Naficy, Chon Noriega, Dana Polan, Murray Pomerance, Hillary Radner, Ralph E. Rodriguez, R.L. Rutsky, James Schamus, Christopher Sharrett, David Shumway, Robert Sklar, Murray Smith, Marita Sturken, Imre Szeman, Fra

Table of Contents

The End of Cinema As We Know it and I Feel ...: An Introduction to a Book on Nineties American Film	1	(11)
Jon Lewis
I Movies, Money, and History
The Blockbuster: Everything Connects, but Not Everything Goes	11	(12)
Thomas Elsaesser
Those Who Disagree Can Kiss Jack Valenti's Ass	23	(10)
Jon Lewis
The Hollywood History Business	33	(10)
Jan-Christopher Horak
The Man Who Wanted to Go Back	43	(10)
Murray Pomerance
II Things American (Sort Of)
``American'' Cinema in the 1990s and Beyond: Whose Country's Filmmaking is it Anyway?	53	(8)
Charlie Keil
Marketing Marginalized Cultures: The Wedding Banquet, Cultural Indentities, and Independent Cinema of the 1990s	61	(11)
Justin Wyatt
Hollywood Redux: All about My Mother and Gladiator	72	(11)
Hilary Radner
III Four Key Films
The Zen of Masculinity-Rituals of Heroism in the Matrix	83	(12)
Pat Mellencamp
Ikea Boy Fights Back: Fight Club, Consumerism, and the Political Limits of Nineties Cinema	95	(10)
Henry A. Giroux
Imre Szeman
The Blair Witch Project, Macbeth, and the Indeterminate End	105	(10)
Eric S. Mallin
Empire of the Gun: Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and American Chauvinism	115	(16)
Frank P. Tomasulo
Saving Private Ryan Too Late	131	(10)
Krin Gabbard
IV Pictures and Politics
The Confusions of Warren Beatty	141	(9)
Dana Polan
Movie Star Presidents	150	(8)
Thomas Doherty
The Fantasy Image: Fixed and Moving	158	(10)
Maureen Turim
Men with Guns: The Story John Sayles Can't Tell	168	(7)
Ralph E. Rodriguez
The End of Chicano Cinema	175	(10)
Chon A. Noriega
V The End of Masculinity As We Know it
Being Keanu	185	(10)
R. L. Rutsky
Woody Allen, ``the Artist,'' and ``the Little Girl''	195	(8)
David R. Shumway
Affliction: When Paranoid Male Narratives Fail	203	(7)
Marita Sturken
The Phallus UnFetished: The End of Masculinity As We Know it in Late-1990s ``Feminist'' Cinema	210	(15)
Alexandra Juhasz
VI Bodies at Rest and in Motion
Bods and Monsters: The Return of the Bride of Frankenstein	225	(12)
Elizabeth Young
Having Their Cake and Eating it Too: Fat Acceptance Films and the Production of Meaning	237	(16)
Jerry Mosher
VII Independents
A Rant	253	(8)
James Schamus
The Case of Harmony Korine	261	(8)
Robert Sklar
Where Hollywood Fears to Tread: Autobiography and the Limits of Commercial Cinema	269	(8)
Kathleen McHugh
Smoke `til You're Blue in the Face	277	(10)
Murray Smith
VIII Not Films Exactly
Pamela Anderson on the Slippery Slope	287	(13)
Chuck Kleinhans
King Rodney: The Rodney King Video and Textual Analysis	300	(5)
Hamid Naficy
Live Video	305	(14)
Laura U. Marks
IX Endgames
End of Story: The Collapse of Myth in Postmodern Narrative Film	319	(13)
Christopher Sharrett
Waiting for the End of the World: Christian Apocalyptic Media at the Turn of the Millennium	332	(10)
Heather Hendershot
The Four Last Things: History, Technology, Hollywood, Apocalypse	342	(14)
Paul Arthur
Twenty-five Reasons Why It's All Over	356	(11)
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Contributors	367	(6)
Index	373