America on Film: Modernism, Documentary, and a Changing America

by Sam B. Girgus

Overview

This study examines a selection of films made in the last quarter of the twentieth century in an effort to trace how the notion of "American" has changed drastically from that portrayed in American cinema up to the 1950s. In works such as Mississippi Masala, Lone Star, Malcolm X, Raging Bull, When We Were Kings and Bugsy Sam Girgus finds a new and ethnically varied array of characters that embody American values, ideals and conflicts. He charts these changes through analysis of cinematic tensions between fiction, documentary and modernism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521810920
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/17/2002
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.55(d)

Table of Contents

Part I. Embodying a New Race for America: The Question of American Hope in Mississippi Masala and Lone Star: 1. Mississippi Masala: merging ethnic and racial images; 2. Lone Star: an archeology of American culture and the American psyche; Part II. Great Fights for the Century: 3. Raging Bull: revisioning the body, soul and cinema; 4. The black gladiator and the Spartacus syndrome: race, redemption, and the ring; Part III. The Image and the Word: Literature and Film: 5. 'Fresh starts': Bugsy, The Great Gatsby, and the American dream; 6. Imaging masochism and the politics of pain: 'facing' the word in the cinetext of Seize the Day; Part IV. Documentary and Fiction: 7. Documenting the body in Modern Times: Love, play, and repression in Chaplin's silent classic; 8. Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, and the rebirth of Malcolm X: cinetext for a black American dream.

Editorial Reviews

"A useful text for anyone interested in understanding how American cinema both produces and reflects stories and images about national ideologies and identities." American Studies

From the Publisher