Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1980
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A Gunfight
A01=Robert B. Ray
American exceptionalism
American Movie
Anachronism
Art film
Author_Robert B. Ray
Bedford Falls (It's a Wonderful Life)
Bonnie and Clyde
Box office
Category=ATF
Category=JBS
Cinema of the United States
Citizen Kane
Close-up
Counterculture
Cult film
Dichotomy
Distrust
Easy Rider
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Film
Film criticism
Film industry
Film noir
Film theory
Filmmaking
Frank Capra
Frontier Thesis
Gene Kelly
Gunfighter
High Noon
Howard Hawks
Humphrey Bogart
Ideology
Ilsa
Individualism
Italian neorealism
Johnny Guitar
Lee Marvin
Marlon Brando
Meet Me in St. Louis
Melodrama
Musical theatre
My Darling Clementine
Narrative
On the Eve
Only Angels Have Wings
Optimism
Orson Welles
Parody
Pessimism
Popular culture
Rebel Without a Cause
Reluctant hero
Screwball comedy film
Self-sufficiency
Sound film
Struggle (TV series)
Taxi Driver
Television
The Auteur Theory
The Far Country
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Other Hand
The Philadelphia Story (play)
The Wrong Man
This Country
Touch of Evil
Voice-over
War film
William Holden
World War II
Writing
Young Mr. Lincoln
Product details
- ISBN 9780691101743
- Weight: 624g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 21 May 1985
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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?
