The LEGO Movie / / Dana Polan.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Texas Press Complete eBook-Package 2020
• VerfasserIn: Polan, Dana,
• Place / Publishing House: Austin : : University of Texas Press, , [2022]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: 21st Century Film Essentials
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (216 p.)

What happens when we set out to understand LEGO not just as a physical object but as an idea, an icon of modernity, an image—maybe even a moving image? To what extent can the LEGO brick fit into the multimedia landscape of popular culture, especially film culture, today? Launching from these questions, Dana Polan traces LEGO from thing to film and asserts that The LEGO Movie is an exemplar of key directions in mainstream cinema, combining the visceral impact of effects and spectacle with ironic self-awareness and savvy critique of mass culture as it reaches for new heights of creativity. Incorporating insights from conversations with producer Dan Lin and writer-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Polan examines the production and reception of The LEGO Movie and closely analyzes the film within popular culture at large and in relation to LEGO as a toy and commodity. He identifies the film’s particular stylistic and narrative qualities, its grasp of and response to the culture industry, and what makes it a distinctive work of animation within the seeming omnipresence of animation in Hollywood, and reveals why the blockbuster film, in all its silliness and seriousness, stands apart as a divergent cultural work.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Prologue -- The World of Animation and the Animation of the World -- The LEGO Movie as Savvy Cinema -- Through the Rabbit Hole, into the LEGO-Verse -- Falling into Narrative -- The Extraordinary Ordinariness of LEGO -- The Secret Life of Toys -- Production History, Part 1: Project Development as LEGO Goes to the Movies -- Production History, Part 2: The Animation Process -- Production History, Part 3: The Screenwriter-Directors -- Reception and After-Life -- Coda -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- LEGO Bibliography -- Index