Death in classical Hollywood cinema
Characterized by a causal, linear, individual-driven narrative, but also by a flair for excessive melodramatic spectacles, Hollywood's classical films from the 1920s through the 1950s pose unique challenges and constraints for making death meaningful. Death in Classical Hollywood Cinema shows h...
| Main Author: | Hagin, Boaz, 1973- |
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| Other Authors: | Palgrave Connect (Online service) |
| Format: | Electronic |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Basingstoke [England] ; New York :
Palgrave Macmillan,
2010.
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| Physical Description: |
ix, 201 pages ; 23 cm. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: |
Characterized by a causal, linear, individual-driven narrative, but also by a flair for excessive melodramatic spectacles, Hollywood's classical films from the 1920s through the 1950s pose unique challenges and constraints for making death meaningful. Death in Classical Hollywood Cinema shows how philosophies of death can be gleaned by looking at the role death plays within the classical Hollywood narrative and in later mainstream films which cope with death in light of virtual reality, cloning, and genetic engineering. Addressing major continental thinkers like Freud, Benjamin, and Deleuze, and focusing on the melodrama, gangster film, Western, and war film, this book analyses and challenges the ways Hollywood can offer to cope with death and to make sense of our inevitable and universal mortality. |
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| Item Description: |
Electronic reproduction. Basingstoke, England : Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web. System requirements: Web browser. Title from title screen (viewed on Sep. 27, 2010). Access may be restricted to users at subscribing institutions. Characterized by a causal, linear, individual-driven narrative, but also by a flair for excessive melodramatic spectacles, Hollywood's classical films from the 1920s through the 1950s pose unique challenges and constraints for making death meaningful. Death in Classical Hollywood Cinema shows how philosophies of death can be gleaned by looking at the role death plays within the classical Hollywood narrative and in later mainstream films which cope with death in light of virtual reality, cloning, and genetic engineering. Addressing major continental thinkers like Freud, Benjamin, and Deleuze, and focusing on the melodrama, gangster film, Western, and war film, this book analyses and challenges the ways Hollywood can offer to cope with death and to make sense of our inevitable and universal mortality. Includes bibliographical references and index. The meaning of death in classical Hollywood. Practicing film theory -- Death on the line -- A politics of death -- Two Platos : death, truth, and knowledge. A rehearsal for death -- Access, authority, and tests -- The superfluity of a truth-revealing death -- The misery of truth -- Embodying the past. The killability test -- A logic of singular evil -- Melodrama and the shaping of desires to come. Sublating death -- Obstacles and goals -- Desiring death -- Impossible legacies -- Cults of the dead and powers of the false. Retaining the dead -- Westerns and falsehoods -- The forming of a cult -- A brand that sticks -- A perpetual present : death and the war film. An absurd death -- The Hollywood war machine -- The exception of state -- Conclusions : the ends of classical death. Billy Wilder and Hollywood's "Auschwitz" -- The vicissitudes of the killability test -- The virtual Frankenstein. |
| Physical Description: |
ix, 201 pages ; 23 cm. |
| Bibliography: |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780230275072 0230275079 |