Triumph over Containment: American Film in the 1950s
The long 1950s, which extend back to the early postwar period and forward into the early 1960s, were a period of “containment culture” in America, as the media worked to reinforce traditional family values and suspected communist sympathizers were blacklisted from the entertainment industry. Yet some brave filmmakers and actors still challenged the status quo to produce indelible and imaginative work that delivered uncomfortable truths to Cold War audiences. 
 
Triumph Over Containment offers an uncompromising look at some of the era’s greatest films and directors, from household names like Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick to lesser-known iconoclasts like Samuel Fuller and Ida Lupino. Taking in everything from The Thing from Another World (1951) to Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), acclaimed film scholar Robert P. Kolker scours a variety of different genres to find pockets of resistance to the repressive and oppressive norms of Cold War culture. He devotes special attention to two quintessential 1950s genres—the melodrama and the science fiction film—that might seem like polar opposites, but each offered pointed responses to containment culture. 
 
This book takes a fresh look at such directors as Nicholas Ray, John Ford, and Orson Welles, while giving readers a new appreciation for the depth and artistry of 1950s Hollywood films.
1138689675
Triumph over Containment: American Film in the 1950s
The long 1950s, which extend back to the early postwar period and forward into the early 1960s, were a period of “containment culture” in America, as the media worked to reinforce traditional family values and suspected communist sympathizers were blacklisted from the entertainment industry. Yet some brave filmmakers and actors still challenged the status quo to produce indelible and imaginative work that delivered uncomfortable truths to Cold War audiences. 
 
Triumph Over Containment offers an uncompromising look at some of the era’s greatest films and directors, from household names like Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick to lesser-known iconoclasts like Samuel Fuller and Ida Lupino. Taking in everything from The Thing from Another World (1951) to Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), acclaimed film scholar Robert P. Kolker scours a variety of different genres to find pockets of resistance to the repressive and oppressive norms of Cold War culture. He devotes special attention to two quintessential 1950s genres—the melodrama and the science fiction film—that might seem like polar opposites, but each offered pointed responses to containment culture. 
 
This book takes a fresh look at such directors as Nicholas Ray, John Ford, and Orson Welles, while giving readers a new appreciation for the depth and artistry of 1950s Hollywood films.
30.95 In Stock
Triumph over Containment: American Film in the 1950s

Triumph over Containment: American Film in the 1950s

by Robert P. Kolker
Triumph over Containment: American Film in the 1950s

Triumph over Containment: American Film in the 1950s

by Robert P. Kolker

eBook

$30.95 

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers

LEND ME® See Details

Overview

The long 1950s, which extend back to the early postwar period and forward into the early 1960s, were a period of “containment culture” in America, as the media worked to reinforce traditional family values and suspected communist sympathizers were blacklisted from the entertainment industry. Yet some brave filmmakers and actors still challenged the status quo to produce indelible and imaginative work that delivered uncomfortable truths to Cold War audiences. 
 
Triumph Over Containment offers an uncompromising look at some of the era’s greatest films and directors, from household names like Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick to lesser-known iconoclasts like Samuel Fuller and Ida Lupino. Taking in everything from The Thing from Another World (1951) to Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), acclaimed film scholar Robert P. Kolker scours a variety of different genres to find pockets of resistance to the repressive and oppressive norms of Cold War culture. He devotes special attention to two quintessential 1950s genres—the melodrama and the science fiction film—that might seem like polar opposites, but each offered pointed responses to containment culture. 
 
This book takes a fresh look at such directors as Nicholas Ray, John Ford, and Orson Welles, while giving readers a new appreciation for the depth and artistry of 1950s Hollywood films.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781978820944
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Publication date: 10/15/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 232
File size: 28 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

ROBERT P. KOLKER is a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland in College Park. He is author of numerous books, including The Extraordinary Image: Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and the Reimagining of Cinema (Rutgers University Press), A Cinema of Loneliness, Film, Form, and Culture, and, with Nathan Abrams, Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick and the Making of his Final Film. He is currently at work on a biography of Stanley Kubrick with Nathan Abrams.

Table of Contents


Introduction 

1 On Containment, Screen Size, and the Lightness and the Dark 

2 “It Was Like Going Down to the Bottom of the World”: John Garfield and Enterprise 

3 “I’m a Stranger Here Myself”: Nicholas Ray and Ida Lupino 

4 “Love, Hate, Action, Violence, and Death . . . in One Word: Emotion”: Joseph Losey and Samuel Fuller 

5 “Put an Amen to It”: The Old Masters—Welles, Hitchcock, Ford 

6 Looking to the Skies: Science Fiction in the 1950s 

7 “How Can You Say You Love Me . . . ?”: Melodrama 

Conclusion: “Complete Total Final Annihilating Artistic Control”—Stanley Kubrick Explodes Containment 

Acknowledgments

Notes 

Selected Bibliography 

Index 


From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews