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American Circus Posters
by Charles Philip FoxThe Children's Dream of Fairy-Land (1893) . . . Living Statues on Horseback (1890s) . . . Real Roman Hippodrome, Five Continent Menagerie (1890s) . . . Uno, Queen Supreme of the Serpent Kingdom (1894) . . . Dancing Girls, Mounted Guards and Truly Lavish Displays (1903) . . . "Twisting Double Somersault," A Feat Never Before Attempted by the Most Intrepid Aerialists (1904) . . . Desperado's Terrible Leap for Life, A Terrific Descent of 80 Feet Through Space Landing Upon His Chest on a Skid (1909) . . . The Imperial Chinese Circus Stars (1914) . . . An Army of Clowns (1920s) . . . Pallenberg's Wonder Bears (1920s) . . . Gargantua the Great (1938).Originally put in store windows and posted on sheds, barns, buildings, walls and fences, these 18 extremely rare posters, most not previously reproduced, are collected together for the first time. The quality of reproduction is superb: reproduced in full color directly from the originals, these posters have been printed in an extra large format and on coated stock so that every detail is clear. They are an exciting visual history, capturing the pageantry and color that the circus was and is. They are also extremely fine examples of almost 50 years of poster art and American advertising. There are acrobats, elephants, tigers, lions, parades, tents, trains, and many specialized acts: May Wirth, the Riding Rooneys, the Astounding Clarkonians, etc. The posters date from the 1890s to the 1940s, and include one by Norman Bel Geddes. They feature many American circuses: Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey, Sells, Sparks, Hagenbeck-Wallace. The historical introduction and captions are by Charles Philip Fox, Director of Research and Development with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
The American City in the Cinema
by James A. ClappThe American city and the American movie industry grew up together in the early decades of the twentieth century, making film an ideal medium through which to better understand urban life. Exploiting the increasing popularity of large metropolitan cities and urban lifestyle, movies chronicled the city and the stories it generated. In this volume, urbanist James A. Clapp explores the reciprocal relationship between the city and the cinema within the dimensions of time and space.A variety of themes and actualizations have been repeated throughout the history of the cinema, including the roles of immigrants, women, small towns, family farms, and suburbia; and urban childhoods, family values, violent crime, politics, and dystopic futures. Clapp examines the different ways in which the city has been characterized as well as how it has been portrayed as a character itself.Some of the films discussed include Metropolis, King Kong, West Side Story, It's a Wonderful Life, American Beauty, Rebel without a Cause, American Graffiti, Blade Runner, Gangs of New York, The Untouchables, LA Confidential, Sunrise, Crash, American History X, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Deer Hunter, and many more. This work will be enjoyed by urban specialists, moviegoers, and those interested in American, cultural, and film studies.
American Cocktail
by Anita Reynolds Howard M. Miller George HutchinsonThis is the rollicking, never-before-published memoir of a fascinating woman with an uncanny knack for being in the right place in the most interesting times. Of racially mixed heritage, Anita Reynolds was proudly African American but often passed for Indian, Mexican, or Creole. Actress, dancer, model, literary critic, psychologist, but above all free-spirited provocateur, she was, as her Parisian friends nicknamed her, an "American cocktail. " One of the first black stars of the silent era, she appeared in Hollywood movies with Rudolph Valentino, attended Charlie Chaplin's anarchist meetings, and studied dance with Ruth St. Denis. She moved to New York in the 1920s and made a splash with both Harlem Renaissance elites and Greenwich Village bohemians. An emigre in Paris, she fell in with the Left Bank avant garde, " befriending Antonin Artaud, Man Ray, and Pablo Picasso. Next, she took up residence as a journalist in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War and witnessed firsthand the growing menace of fascism. In 1940, as the Nazi panzers closed in on Paris, Reynolds spent the final days before the French capitulation as a Red Cross nurse, afterward making a mad dash for Lisbon to escape on the last ship departing Europe. In prose that perfectly captures the globetrotting nonchalance of its author, American Cocktail" presents a stimulating, unforgettable self-portrait of a truly extraordinary woman.
An American Comedy
by Harold Lloyd Wesley W. StoutThis autobiography by an influential silent film star gives an insider&’s view of the motion picture industry in the early twentieth century. It&’s one of the most enduring images in film history: a young man in circular glasses, dangling from the hands of a clock high above Los Angeles. The actor performing this daring stunt was Harold Lloyd, a highly successful comedian from the silent film era. Lloyd made nearly two hundred comedies, both silent and &“talkies,&” between 1914 and 1947. He is best known for his &“Glass&” character, a bespectacled everyman who captured the mood of the 1920s. In this fascinating autobiography, which was written just around the time sound was revolutionizing cinema, Lloyd chronicles his experiences as a performer and producer of silent films, preserving firsthand details of Hollywood&’s bygone period. This extraordinary memoir, originally published in 1928, discusses actors both comedic and dramatic, stage to film adaptations, producers, directors, and primarily, how early silent movies were made. It is a must-read for film historians and movie buffs alike.
American Cultures as Transnational Performance: Commons, Skills, Traces (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Katrin Horn Leopold Lippert Ilka Saal Pia WiegminkThis book investigates transnational processes through the analytic lens of cultural performance. Structured around key concepts of performance studies––commons, skills, and traces––this edited collection addresses the political, normative, and historical implications of cultural performances beyond the limits of the (US) nation-state. These three central aspects of performance function as entryways to inquiries into transnational processes and allow the authors to shift the discussion away from text-centered approaches to intercultural encounters and to bring into focus the dynamic field that opens up between producer, art work, context, setting, and audience in the moment of performance as well as in its afterlife. The chapters provide fresh, performance-based approaches to notions of transcultural mobility and circulation, transnational cultural experience and knowledge formation, transnational public spheres, and identities’ rootedness in both specific local places and diasporic worlds beyond the written word. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of American studies, performance studies, and transnational studies
American Diva: Extraordinary, Unruly, Fabulous
by Deborah ParedezAn impassioned homage to the divas who shake up our world and transform it with their bold, dazzling artistry. What does it mean to be a “diva”? A shifting, increasingly loaded term, it has been used to both deride and celebrate charismatic and unapologetically fierce performers like Aretha Franklin, Divine, and the women of Labelle. In this brilliant, powerful blend of incisive criticism and electric memoir, Deborah Paredez—scholar, cultural critic, and lifelong diva devotee—unravels our enduring fascination with these icons and explores how divas have challenged American ideas about feminism, performance, and freedom. American Diva journeys into Tina Turner’s scintillating performances, Celia Cruz’s command of the male-dominated salsa world, the transcendent revival of Jomama Jones after a period of exile, and the unparalleled excellence of Venus and Serena Williams. Recounting how she and her mother endlessly watched Rita Moreno’s powerhouse portrayal of Anita in West Side Story and how she learned much about being bigger than life from her fabulous Tía Lucia, Paredez chronicles the celebrated and skilled performers who not only shaped her life but boldly expressed the aspiration for freedom among brown, Black, and gay communities. Paredez also traces the evolution of the diva through the decades, dismayed at the mid-aughts’ commodification and juvenilizing of its meaning but finding its lasting beauty and power. Filled with sharp insights and great heart, American Diva is a spirited tribute to the power of performance and the joys of fandom.
American Documentary Filmmaking in the Digital Age: Depictions of War in Burns, Moore, and Morris (Routledge Advances in Film Studies)
by Lucia RicciardelliAmerican Documentary Filmmaking in the Digital Age examines the recent challenges to the conventions of realist documentary through the lens of war documentary films by Ken Burns, Michael Moore, and Errol Morris. During the twentieth century, the invention of new technologies of audiovisual representation such as cinema, television, video, and digital media have transformed the modes of historical narration and with it forced historians to assess the impact of new visual technologies on the construction of history. This book investigates the manner in which this contemporary Western "crisis" in historical narrative is produced by a larger epistemological shift in visual culture. Ricciardelli uses the theme of war as depicted in these directors’ films to focus her study and look at the model(s) of national identity that Burns, Morris, and Moore shape through their depictions of US military actions. She examines how postcolonial critiques of historicism and the advent of digitization have affected the narrative structure of documentary film and the shaping of historical consciousness through cinematic representation.
American Dreamer: My Life in Fashion & Business
by Tommy Hilfiger Peter Knobler Quincy JonesIn this tale of grit and glamour, setbacks and comebacks, business and pop culture icon Tommy Hilfiger shares his extraordinary life story for the first time. Few designers have stayed on top of changing trends the way Tommy Hilfiger has. Fewer still have left such an indelible mark on global culture. Since designing his first collection of "classics with a twist" three decades ago, Tommy Hilfiger has been synonymous with all-American style--but his destiny wasn't always so clear. Growing up one of nine children in a working-class family in Elmira, New York, Tommy suffered from dyslexia, flunked sophomore year of high school, and found himself constantly at odds with his father. Nevertheless, this self-described dreamer had a vision and the relentless will to make it a reality. At eighteen he opened his own clothing store, parlaying his uncanny instinct for style into a budding career as a fashion designer. Through decades of triumph and turmoil, Tommy remained doggedly optimistic. To this day, his approach to commerce is rooted in his positive view of the world.American Dreamer brims with anecdotes that cover Tommy's years as a club kid and scrappy entrepreneur in 1970s New York as well as unique insights into the exclusive A-list personalities with whom he's collaborated and interacted, from Mick Jagger and David Bowie to Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. But this is more than just a fashion icon's memoir--it's a road map for building a brand, both professionally and personally. Tommy takes us behind the scenes of every decision--and every mistake--he's ever made, offering advice on leadership, business, team-building, and creativity. This is the story of a true American original, told for the first time in his own words, with honesty, humor, and the insatiable appetite for life and style that proves that sometimes you have to dream big to make it big. Advance praise for American Dreamer "Tommy burst onto the fashion scene at the height of hip-hop and was instantly taken up by rappers and rockers alike. Since then, year after year he has been ahead of the curve with his elegant and stylish looks. His creative energy has always been an inspiration to me. He's really himself in American Dreamer."--Mick Jagger "Whenever I think of Tommy Hilfiger, I think of a designer who has been able to wrap fashion in the American flag. In American Dreamer Tommy shows how he has taken the (rock) stars and the (preppy) stripes and come up with a look--and a label--that are recognized globally as being quintessentially American, as well as a brand that constantly keeps time with pop music."--Anna Wintour "Tommy is an inspiration to many people. American Dreamer shows how he has managed to be successful in business and done so with integrity. I have come to know Tommy, and every time we talk I learn something new about creating a successful business."--David Beckham "Tommy is one of the most genuine people I know! In American Dreamer you can feel his passion pour through everything he does: fashion, fatherhood, family, and friendship!"--Alicia Keys "Tommy Hilfiger is an American icon who was able to transcend fashion and blend it with pop culture and take it to a worldwide audience. American Dreamer documents how, unlike any other designer, Tommy was able to tap into music, its subculture, and its influence on society, which propelled his fashion to be mainstream and global."--Tommy MottolaFrom the Hardcover edition.
American Ethnographic Film and Personal Documentary
by Scott MacdonaldAmerican Ethnographic Film and Personal Documentary is a critical history of American filmmakers crucial to the development of ethnographic film and personal documentary. The Boston and Cambridge area is notable for nurturing these approaches to documentary film via institutions such as the MIT Film Section and the Film Study Center, the Carpenter Center and the Visual and Environmental Studies Department at Harvard. Scott MacDonald uses pragmatism's focus on empirical experience as a basis for measuring the groundbreaking achievements of such influential filmmakers as John Marshall, Robert Gardner, Timothy Asch, Ed Pincus, Miriam Weinstein, Alfred Guzzetti, Ross McElwee, Robb Moss, Nina Davenport, Steve Ascher and Jeanne Jordan, Michel Negroponte, John Gianvito, Alexander Olch, Amie Siegel, Ilisa Barbash, and Lucien Castaing-Taylor. By exploring the cinematic, personal, and professional relationships between these accomplished filmmakers, MacDonald shows how a pioneering, engaged, and uniquely cosmopolitan approach to documentary developed over the past half century.
American Film: A History
by Jon Lewis<p>Written by a top scholar in the field, American Film: A History gives students a thorough understanding of the fascinating intersection of artistry and economics in Hollywood cinema from the beginning of film history to the present. <p>A beautiful book and a brisk read, American Film is the most enjoyable and interesting overview of the history of American filmmaking available. Focused on aspects of the film business that are of perennial interest to undergraduates, this book will engage students from beginning to end.</p>
American Film Cycles
by Amanda Ann KleinA series of movies that share images, characters, settings, plots, or themes, film cycles have been an industrial strategy since the beginning of cinema. While some have viewed them as “subgenres,” mini-genres, or nascent film genres, Amanda Ann Klein argues that film cycles are an entity in their own right and a subject worthy of their own study. She posits that film cycles retain the marks of their historical, economic, and generic contexts and therefore can reveal much about the state of contemporary politics, prevalent social ideologies, aesthetic trends, popular desires, and anxieties. American Film Cycles presents a series of case studies of successful film cycles, including the melodramatic gangster films of the 1920s, the 1930s Dead End Kids cycle, the 1950s juvenile delinquent teenpic cycle, and the 1990s ghetto action cycle. Klein situates these films in several historical trajectories—the Progressive movement of the 1910s and 1920s, the beginnings of America’s involvement in World War II, the “birth” of the teenager in the 1950s, and the drug and gangbanger crises of the early 1990s. She shows how filmmakers, audiences, film reviewers, advertisements, and cultural discourses interact with and have an impact on the film texts. Her findings illustrate the utility of the film cycle in broadening our understanding of established film genres, articulating and building upon beliefs about contemporary social problems, shaping and disseminating deviant subcultures, and exploiting and reflecting upon racial and political upheaval.
American Film Exhibition and an Analysis of the Motion Picture Industry's Market Structure 1963-1980 (Routledge Library Editions: Cinema)
by Gary EdgertonThis study looks at how the movie industry organisation functioned between the late ‘40s and 1983 when it was originally published. It describes the changing role of domestic exhibition through this time and analyses the wider film industry to provide a model of the exhibition structure in relation to production, distribution and outside factors. It addresses the growing issues of the cable and video markets as competition to the film exhibition business at that time and looks forward into a highly turbulent environment. With particular interest now as the film industry address a new range of threats and adaptations of its working structure, this book offers and integral understanding of a key stage in cinema history.
American Film History: Selected Readings, Origins to 1960
by Cynthia Lucia Roy Grundmann Art SimonThis authoritative collection of introductory and specialized readings explores the rich and innovative history of this period in American cinema. Spanning an essential range of subjects from the early 1900s Nickelodeon to the decline of the studio system in the 1960s, it combines a broad historical context with careful readings of individual films. Charts the rise of film in early twentieth-century America from its origins to 1960, exploring mainstream trends and developments, along with topics often relegated to the margins of standard film histories Covers diverse issues ranging from silent film and its iconic figures such as Charlie Chaplin, to the coming of sound and the rise of film genres, studio moguls, and, later, the Production Code and Cold War Blacklist Designed with both students and scholars in mind: each section opens with an historical overview and includes chapters that provide close, careful readings of individual films clustered around specific topics Accessibly structured by historical period, offering valuable cultural, social, and political contexts Contains careful, close analysis of key filmmakers and films from the era including D.W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Erich von Stroheim, Cecil B. DeMille, Don Juan, The Jazz Singer, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Scarface, Red Dust, Glorifying the American Girl, Meet Me in St. Louis, Citizen Kane, Bambi, Frank Capra’s Why We Fight series, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Rebel Without a Cause, Force of Evil, and selected American avant-garde and underground films, among many others. Additional online resources such as sample syllabi, which include suggested readings and filmographies for both general specialized courses, will be available online. May be used alongside American Film History: Selected Readings, 1960 to the Present, to provide an authoritative study of American cinema through the new millennium
American Film History: Selected Readings, 1960 to the Present
by Cynthia Lucia Roy Grundmann Art SimonFrom the American underground film to the blockbuster superhero, this authoritative collection of introductory and specialized readings explores the core issues and developments in American cinematic history during the second half of the twentieth-century through the present day. Considers essential subjects that have shaped the American film industry—from the impact of television and CGI to the rise of independent and underground film; from the impact of the civil rights, feminist and LGBT movements to that of 9/11. Features a student-friendly structure dividing coverage into the periods 1960-1975, 1976-1990, and 1991 to the present day, each of which opens with an historical overview Brings together a rich and varied selection of contributions by established film scholars, combining broad historical, social, and political contexts with detailed analysis of individual films, including Midnight Cowboy, Nashville, Cat Ballou, Chicago, Back to the Future, Killer of Sheep, Daughters of the Dust, Nothing But a Man, Ali, Easy Rider, The Conversation, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Longtime Companion, The Matrix, The War Tapes, the Batman films, and selected avant-garde and documentary films, among many others. Additional online resources, such as sample syllabi, which include suggested readings and filmographies, for both general and specialized courses, will be available online. May be used alongside American Film History: Selected Readings, Origins to 1960 to provide an authoritative study of American cinema from its earliest days through the new millennium
American Film Institute Desk Reference
by George Ochoa Melinda CoreyThe American Film Institute Desk Reference is the most comprehensive book on filmmaking. It provides detailed information on the world of film, its history and its personalities.
American Film Satire in the 1990s
by Johan NilssonSatire is often defined as a moral and rhetorical art that engages in social critique through wit and ridicule. During its long history it has come in many forms and genres as well as in different types of media (verse, drama, rhetorical performance, prose, cartoons, journalism, film, TV, internet). Here, Nilsson examines American film satire produced during the 1990s and how its style and form cue viewers towards constructing satirical meaning. The study offers an explanation for how a particular selection of films turned material circulating in American culture of the 1990s into satirical experiences for viewers and finds that there are elements of resistance to mainstream culture in the original material: resistance to norms and conventions in politics, to mainstream news channels and Hollywood, and to official American history.
American Films of the 70s: Conflicting Visions
by Peter LevWhile the anti-establishment rebels of 1969's Easy Rider were morphing into the nostalgic yuppies of 1983's The Big Chill, Seventies movies brought us everything from killer sharks, blaxploitation, and disco musicals to a loving look at General George S. Patton. Indeed, as Peter Lev persuasively argues in this book, the films of the 1970s constitute a kind of conversation about what American society is and should be—open, diverse, and egalitarian, or stubbornly resistant to change. Examining forty films thematically, Lev explores the conflicting visions presented in films with the following kinds of subject matter: Hippies (Easy Rider, Alice's Restaurant) Cops (The French Connection, Dirty Harry) Disasters and conspiracies (Jaws, Chinatown) End of the Sixties (Nashville, The Big Chill) Art, Sex, and Hollywood (Last Tango in Paris) Teens (American Graffiti, Animal House) War (Patton, Apocalypse Now) African-Americans (Shaft, Superfly) Feminisms (An Unmarried Woman, The China Syndrome) Future visions (Star Wars, Blade Runner) As accessible to ordinary moviegoers as to film scholars, Lev's book is an essential companion to these familiar, well-loved movies.
American Gangbang: A Love Story
by Sam BenjaminA thoughtful, hilarious, and compulsively readable memoir by an Ivy League graduate-turned-pornographer who sets out to bring sophistication and equality to sexual cinema--only to find that he can't change porn, but porn can certainly change him.American Gangbang heralds the arrival of a profound and gifted new voice in narrative nonfiction. In 1999, after four years of studying at Brown University, Sam Benjamin heads to California in a twenty-year-old Volvo, dead set on turning himself into an artist, despite his complete lack of talent. There, stoned, he has an epiphany--he will make progressive porn. And so begins his turbulent journey. . . .In whip-smart, lyrical prose, Benjamin traces his three-year immersion into the world of Hollywood's bleak, screen glow-lit doppelganger: the southern California sex industry. His rapid ascent from the dingy storefront rental of a starving artist to the multimillion-dollar Malibu villa of a full-fledged porn producer confronts him with the uncomfortably alluring realities of America's strangest industry: gun-toting actors, high on terrible, drug-induced potency; giggling actresses battling internal demons in wobbly heels and pink fishnets; the insatiable consumer demands to sink ever lower, more exploitative, nastier. The result is the titillating, dramatic chronicle of a young man who invites the deepest, most troubling parts of himself to rise to the surface in order to get a good look at them--only to find that what he sees makes his world seem suddenly very small.A provocative, universal coming-of-age story, American Gangbang explores with unflinching honesty the darkly rich junction of sex and self-discovery.
The American Girl Goes to War: Women and National Identity in U.S. Silent Film (War Culture)
by Liz ClarkeDuring the 1910s, films about war often featured a female protagonist. The films portrayed women as spies, cross-dressing soldiers, and athletic defenders of their homes—roles typically reserved for men and that contradicted gendered-expectations of home-front women waiting for their husbands, sons, and brothers to return from battle. The representation of American martial spirit—particularly in the form of heroines—has a rich history in film in the years just prior to the American entry into World War I. The American Girl Goes to War demonstrates the predominance of heroic female characters in in early narrative films about war from 1908 to 1919. American Girls were filled with the military spirit of their forefathers and became one of the major ways that American women’s changing political involvement, independence, and active natures were contained by and subsumed into pre-existing American ideologies.
American Girls
by Alison UmmingerA bittersweet, honest, and widely acclaimed YA coming-of-age novel that distills honest truths about American girldomAnna is a fifteen-year-old girl slouching toward adulthood, and she's had it with her life at home. So Anna "borrows" her stepmom's credit card and runs away to Los Angeles, where her half-sister takes her in. But LA isn't quite the glamorous escape Anna had imagined.As Anna spends her days on TV and movie sets, she engrosses herself in a project researching the murderous Manson girls—and although the violence in her own life isn't the kind that leaves physical scars, she begins to notice the parallels between herself and the lost girls of LA, and of America, past and present.In Anna's singular voice, we glimpse not only a picture of life on the B-list in LA, but also a clear-eyed reflection on being young, vulnerable, lost, and female in America—in short, on the B-list of life. Alison Umminger writes about girls, violence, and which people society deems worthy of caring about, which ones it doesn't, in a way not often seen in teen fiction.American Girls is:An ALA Booklist Top 10 First Novel A KirkusBest Book of the YearA Barnes & Noble Best YA Book of the YearA Chicago Public Library Best of the Best of 2016A Bustle Best YA Book of the YearYALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults"Messy, honest, and unflinchingly real. I can't get this book out of my head. I don't want to get this book out of my head." —Becky Albertalli, Morris Award-winning author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
American Gothic: The Story of America's Legendary Theatrical Family—Junius, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth
by Gene SmithA New York Times–bestselling author&’s &“lively&” account of a family of famous actors—who became notorious after the assassination of President Lincoln (The New Yorker). Junius Booth and his sons, Edwin and John Wilkes, were nineteenth-century America&’s most famous theatrical family. Yet the Booth name is forever etched in the history books for one terrible reason: the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth at Ford&’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. In American Gothic, bestselling historian Gene Smith vividly chronicles the triumphs, scandals, and tragedies of this infamous family. The preeminent English tragedian of his day, Junius Booth was a madman and an alcoholic who abandoned his wife and young son to move to America and start a new family. His son Edwin became the most renowned Shakespearean actor in America, famously playing Hamlet for one hundred consecutive nights, but he suffered from depression and a crippling fear of inheriting his father&’s insanity. Blessed with extraordinary good looks and a gregarious nature, John Wilkes Booth seemed destined for spectacular fame and fortune. However, his sympathy for the Confederate cause unleashed a dangerous instability that brought permanent disgrace to his family and forever changed the course of American history. Richly detailed and emotionally insightful, American Gothic is a &“ripping good tale&” that brings to life the true story behind a family tragedy of Shakespearean proportions (The New York Times).
The American Historical Imaginary: Contested Narratives of the Past
by Caroline GuthrieIn The American Historical Imaginary: Contested Narratives of the Past in Mass Culture Caroline Guthrie examines the American relationship to versions of the past that are known to be untrue and asks why do these myths persist, and why do so many people hold them so dear? To answer these questions, she examines popular sites where fictional versions of history are formed, played through, and solidified. From television’s reality show winners and time travelers, to the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, to the movies of Quentin Tarantino, this book examines how mass culture imagines and reimagines the most controversial and painful parts of American history. In doing so, Guthrie explores how contemporary ideas of national identity are tied to particular versions of history that valorize white masculinity and ignores oppression and resistance. Through her explanation and analysis of what she calls the historical imaginary, Guthrie offers new ways of attempting to combat harmful myths of the past through the imaginative engagements they have dominated for so long.
American Horror Film: The Genre at the Turn of the Millennium
by Steffen HantkeCreatively spent and politically irrelevant, the American horror film is a mere ghost of its former self—or so goes the old saw from fans and scholars alike. Taking on this undeserved reputation, the contributors to this collection provide a comprehensive look at a decade of cinematic production, covering a wide variety of material from the last ten years with a clear critical eye. Individual essays profile the work of up-and-coming director Alexandre Aja and reassess William Malone’s much-maligned Feardotcom in the light of the torture debate at the end of President George W. Bush’s administration. Other essays look at the economic, social, and formal aspects of the genre; the globalization of the US film industry; the alleged escalation of cinematic violence; and the massive commercial popularity of the remake. Some essays examine specific subgenres—from the teenage horror flick to the serial killer film and the spiritual horror film—as well as the continuing relevance of classic directors such as George A. Romero, David Cronenberg, John Landis, and Stuart Gordon. Essays deliberate on the marketing of nostalgia and its concomitant aesthetic and on the curiously schizophrenic perspective of fans who happen to be scholars as well. Taken together, the contributors to this collection make a compelling case that American horror cinema is as vital, creative, and thought-provoking as it ever was.
American Idol: The Untold Story
by Richard RushfieldThe currency is fame, and it's bigger than money, more desired than power. Each season American Idol delivers on a promise whose epic scope is unparalleled in the annals of competition: to take an unknown dreamer from the middle of America and turn him or her into a genuine star. It has become not only the biggest show on television, but the biggest force in all of entertainment; its alumni dominate the recording charts and Broadway, win Academy Awards, and sweep up Grammys. In fact, American Idol has reshaped the very idea of celebrity. But it didn't start out that way. When the little singing contest debuted as a summer replacement on the U.S. airwaves, it was packed between reruns and low-cost filler. The promise that it would find America's next pop star produced a hearty round of guffaws from the country's media critics. Now, some ten years and millions of records later, no one is laughing. American Idol: The Untold Story chronicles the triumphs and travails, the harrowing backstage drama and the nail-biting onstage battles that built this revolutionary show. In this revealing book, veteran journalist Richard Rushfield goes deeper inside the circus than any reporter ever has. Candid interviews with Idol alumni, including Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell, shed new light on the show that changed the entertainment industry. And because Rushfield had full access to the people who created the show, starred in it, and kept it atop the pop culture pyramid, this book is the first to take Americans behind the curtain and tell what has really been happening on the world's most watched and speculated-about stage.