A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1980 / / Robert B. Ray.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Archive 1927-1999
• VerfasserIn: Ray, Robert B.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2021]; ©1985
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (422 p.)

Robert B. Ray examines the ideology of the most enduringly popular cinema in the world--the Hollywood movie. Aided by 364 frame enlargements, he describes the development of that historically overdetermined form, giving close readings of five typical instances: Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Godfather, and Taxi Driver. Like the heroes of these movies, American filmmaking has avoided commitment, in both plot and technique. Instead of choosing left or right, avant-garde or tradition, American cinema tries to have it both ways.Although Hollywood's commercial success has led the world audience to equate the American cinema with film itself, Hollywood filmmaking is a particular strategy designed to respond to specific historical situations. As an art restricted in theoretical scope but rich in individual variations, the American cinema poses the most interesting question of popular culture: Do dissident forms have any chance of remaining free of a mass medium seeking to co-opt them?

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- PART ONE. CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD (1930-1945) -- 1. A Certain Tendency of the American Cinema: Classic Hollywood's Formal and Thematic Paradigms -- 2. Real and Disguised Westerns: Classic Hollywood's Variations of Its Thematic Paradigm -- 3. The Culmination of Classic Hollywood: Casablanca -- 4. Classic Hollywood's Holding Pattern: The Combat Films of World War II -- PART TWO. THE POSTWAR PERIOD (1946-1966) -- 5. The Dissolution of the Homogeneous Audience and Hollywood's Response: Cult Films, Problem Pictures, and Inflation -- 6. The Discrepancy between Intent and Effect: Film Noir, Youth Rebellion Pictures, Musicals, and Westerns -- 7. Ifs a Wonderful Life and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance -- PART THREE. THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD (1967-1980) -- 8. The 1960s: Frontier Metaphors, Developing Self- Consciousness, and New Waves -- 9. The Left and Right Cycles -- 10. The Godfather and Taxi Driver -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index