Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Wonder and Religion in American Cinema

Why do we watch movies? If we read in search of more life, as Harold Bloom is fond of saying, then we watch movies, this book proposes, in search of wonder. We watch movies in search of awe-inspiring visions, transformative experiences, and moments of emotional transcendence and spiritual sublimity. We watch movies for many of the same reasons that we engage in religion: to fill our ordinary evenings and weekends with something of the extraordinary; to connect our isolated, individual selve...