Death in Classical Hollywood Cinema

by B. Hagin

Overview

Boaz Hagin carries out a philosophical examination of the issue of death as it is represented and problematized in Hollywood cinema of the classical era (1920s-1950s) and in later mainstream films, looking at four major genres: the Western, the gangster film, melodrama and the war film.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230236226
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	04/09/2010
Edition description:	2010
Pages:	201
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

BOAZ HAGIN teaches at the Department of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University, Israel. His articles have appeared in Cinema Journal and Camera Obscura, among other publications. He is currently co-writing a book with Thomas Elsaesser on trauma, memory and fantasy in contemporary American cinema.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

1 The Meaning of Death in Classical Hollywood 1

Practicing Film Theory 1

Death on the Line 3

A Politics of Death 8

2 Two Platos: Death, Truth, and Knowledge 11

A Rehearsal for Death 11

Access, Authority, and Tests 12

The Superfluity of a Truth-Revealing Death 19

The Misery of Truth 21

3 Embodying the Past 26

The Killability Test 26

A Logic of Singular Evil 29

4 Melodrama and the Shaping of Desires to Come 45

Sublating Death 45

Obstacles and Goals 46

Desiring Death 53

Impossible Legacies 61

5 Cults of the Dead and Powers of the False 66

Retaining the Dead 66

Westerns and Falsehoods 70

The Forming of a Cult 77

A Brand that Sticks 81

6 A Perpetual Present: Death and the War Film 86

An Absurd Death 86

The Hollywood War Machine 88

The Exception of State 93

7 Conclusions: The Ends of Classical Death 107

Billy Wilder and Hollywood's "Auschwitz" 108

The Vicissitudes of the Killability Test 120

The Virtual Frankenstein 134

Notes 151

Index 194

Editorial Reviews

'This highly original study is a rigorous, provocative and entertaining account of the different meanings associated with death in classical Hollywood cinema. Analyzing an impressive range of films with flair and theoretical sophistication, it shows how death becomes meaningful in art. This is an important work on Hollywood film which also helps us to understand how we incorporate the death of others into the narrative of our lives.' - Colin Davis, Professor of French, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

From the Publisher