Blockbuster Performances: How Actors Contribute to Cinema's Biggest Hits
This book examines performances in the American film industry’s highest-earning and most influential films. Countering decades of discourse and the conventional notion that special effects are the real stars of Hollywood blockbusters, this book finds that the acting performances in these big-budget action movies are actually better, and more genre-appropriate, than reputed. It argues that while blockbusters are often edited for speed, thrills, and simplicity, and performances are sometimes tailored to this style, most major productions feature more scenes of stage-like acting than hyper-kinetic action. Knowing this, producers of the world’s highest-budgeted motion pictures usually cast strong or generically appropriate actors. With chapters offering unique readings of some of cinema’s biggest hits, such as The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, Iron Man and The Hunger Games, this unprecedented study sheds new light on the importance ofperformance in the Hollywood blockbuster.
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Blockbuster Performances: How Actors Contribute to Cinema's Biggest Hits
This book examines performances in the American film industry’s highest-earning and most influential films. Countering decades of discourse and the conventional notion that special effects are the real stars of Hollywood blockbusters, this book finds that the acting performances in these big-budget action movies are actually better, and more genre-appropriate, than reputed. It argues that while blockbusters are often edited for speed, thrills, and simplicity, and performances are sometimes tailored to this style, most major productions feature more scenes of stage-like acting than hyper-kinetic action. Knowing this, producers of the world’s highest-budgeted motion pictures usually cast strong or generically appropriate actors. With chapters offering unique readings of some of cinema’s biggest hits, such as The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, Iron Man and The Hunger Games, this unprecedented study sheds new light on the importance ofperformance in the Hollywood blockbuster.
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Blockbuster Performances: How Actors Contribute to Cinema's Biggest Hits

Blockbuster Performances: How Actors Contribute to Cinema's Biggest Hits

by Daniel Smith-Rowsey
Blockbuster Performances: How Actors Contribute to Cinema's Biggest Hits

Blockbuster Performances: How Actors Contribute to Cinema's Biggest Hits

by Daniel Smith-Rowsey

Overview

This book examines performances in the American film industry’s highest-earning and most influential films. Countering decades of discourse and the conventional notion that special effects are the real stars of Hollywood blockbusters, this book finds that the acting performances in these big-budget action movies are actually better, and more genre-appropriate, than reputed. It argues that while blockbusters are often edited for speed, thrills, and simplicity, and performances are sometimes tailored to this style, most major productions feature more scenes of stage-like acting than hyper-kinetic action. Knowing this, producers of the world’s highest-budgeted motion pictures usually cast strong or generically appropriate actors. With chapters offering unique readings of some of cinema’s biggest hits, such as The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, Iron Man and The Hunger Games, this unprecedented study sheds new light on the importance ofperformance in the Hollywood blockbuster.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781137518781
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date: 12/06/2018
Series: Palgrave Studies in Screen Industries and Performance
Edition description: 1st ed. 2018
Pages: 211
Product dimensions: 5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Daniel Smith-Rowsey teaches Communication Studies at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California. He is the author of Star Actors in the Hollywood Renaissance: Representing Rough Rebels (2013) and a co-editor of The Netflix Effect: Technology and Entertainment in the 21st Century (2016).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Why Do Critics and Scholars Dismiss Blockbuster Performances?.- 2. Historical Epic Blockbusters: Are You Not Entertained…By Actors?.- 3. Magic Fantasy Blockbusters: One Whimsy to Rule Them All.- 4. Superhero Blockbusters: Actors Ahead of the Curve.- 5. Crime Action Blockbusters: Performing Shaken, Not Stirred.- 6. Male-Led Science Fiction Blockbusters: Performing “Faster, More Intense”.- 7. Female-Led Science Fiction Blockbusters: Performing “Stop Taking My Hand!”.- 8. Conclusion: Once More Around the Blockbuster.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Daniel Smith-Rowsey fills in the gaps in our understanding of acting in contemporary blockbusters. Many accomplished film actors gladly take the shuttle between prestigious independent films and vastly popular action, fantasy, and superhero franchises. Do large scale spectaculars call for a kind of acting different from that required in an intimate character study? With well-chosen case studies and intricate analyses, the author answers these questions and many others in a book that should become a standard in the studies of performance and Hollywood cinema." (Dennis Bingham, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, USA)

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