American Blockbuster

Movies, Technology, and Wonder

Charles R. Acland (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

400 Seiten

2020
Duke University Press (Verlag)
9781478009504 (ISBN)

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Ben-Hur (1959), Jaws (1975), Avatar (2009), Wonder Woman (2017): the blockbuster movie has held a dominant position in American popular culture for decades. In American Blockbuster Charles R. Acland charts the origins, impact, and dynamics of this most visible, entertaining, and disparaged cultural form. Acland narrates how blockbusters emerged from Hollywood's turn to a hit-driven focus during the industry's business crisis in the 1950s. Movies became bigger, louder, and more spectacular. They also became prototypes for ideas and commodities associated with the future of technology and culture, accelerating the prominence of technological innovation in modern American life. Acland shows that blockbusters continue to be more than just movies; they are industrial strategies and complex cultural machines designed to normalize the ideologies of our technological age.

Charles R. Acland is Distinguished University Research Professor of Communication Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. He is the author of Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence and Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture, and coeditor of Useful Cinema, all also published by Duke University Press.

Acknowledgments ix
Part I. The Spectacle Industry
1. Blockbuster Ballyhoo 3
2. Industrial Regimes of Entertainment 35
Part II. The Rise of the Blockbuster
3. Delivering Blockbusters 87
4. The Business of Big 124
5. Hollywood's Return 160
6. Cosmopolitan Artlessness 191
Part III. The Technological Sublime of Entertainment Everywhere
7. The End of James Cameron's Quiet Years 233
8. The Technological Heart of Movie Culture 266
Epilogue. Exhausted Entertainment 296
Notes 305
Filmography 337
Bibliography 347
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	18.08.2020
Reihe/Serie	Sign, Storage, Transmission
Zusatzinfo	54 illustrations
Verlagsort	North Carolina
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	544 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
	Technik ► Nachrichtentechnik
ISBN-13	9781478009504 / 9781478009504
Zustand	Neuware