Screening The Sacred: Religion, Myth, And Ideology In Popular American Film

by Joel Martin, Conrad E. Ostwalt Jr.

Overview

What are the religious impulses in the 1976 film Rocky, and how can they work to shape one's social identity? Do the films Alien and Aliens signify the reemergence of the earth goddess as a vital cultural power? What female archetypes, borne out of male desire, inform the experience of women in Nine and a Half Weeks? These are among the several comp

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367317904
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/13/2019
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Joel W. Martin is associate professor of American studies and religious studies at Franklin and Marshall College. He is the author of Sacred Revolt: The Muskogees' Struggle for a New World. Conrad E. Ostwalt Jr. is associate professor of religious studies at Appalachian State University. He is the author of After Eden: The Secularization of American Space in the Fiction of Willa Cather and Theodore Dreiser.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Seeing the Sacred on the Screen — Theological Criticism — Shall These Bones Live? The Problem of Bodies in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and Joel Coen's Blood Simple — Angels in the Primum Mobile: Dimensions of the Sacred in William Kennedy's Ironweed, Novel and Film — The Christian Allegorical Structure of Platoon — Hollywood and Armageddon: Apocalyptic Themes in Recent Cinematic Presentation — Mythological Criticism — Star Wars: A Myth for Our Time — With Eyes Uplifted: Space Aliens as Sky Gods — Evolution of "The New Frontier" in Alien and Aliens: Patriarchal Co-optation of the Feminine Archetype — Ideological Criticism — Redeeming America: Rocky as Ritual Racial Drama — From Revelation to Dream: Allegory in David Lynch's Blue Velvet — Women Spoken For: Images of Displaced Desire — Conclusion: Religion, Film, and Cultural Analysis