Boston University

Department of Film and TV

Professor Roy Grundmann

Summer 2011

T.A.: George Carstocea georgec@bu.edu

COM FT 554 SA 1 The Hollywood Blockbuster

Office: Room 104

Office Hours: summer hours by appointment only

email: roygr@bu.edu (617) 353-6185 office

Course Description:

This class examines crucial aspects of the films of Hollywood's high budget commercial

cinema, also known as blockbusters. Although the term has been in circulation since the 1920s,

the modern blockbuster is a specific phenomenon which is inextricably linked with the

reconsolidation of Hollywood mainstream filmmaking in the 1970s and which has since

developed into an entertainment enterprise of global industrial, technological, and cultural

dominance. These three aspects are then the focus of a series of analyses and investigations

which this course will conduct in five sections.

The first section, Hollywood=Spectacle, examines the premise and function of the

blockbuster by briefly introducing students to a number of historical "predecessors," such as

Cabiria, Intolerance, Ben Hur (1927, 1959), and The Robe. The section focuses on the

intrinsically commercial nature of Hollywood cinema and traces the entertainment industry's

predisposition for producing and exploiting spectacular visuals for entertainment purposes. It is

supposed to provide students with a historical dimension of big budget Hollywood filmmaking

from Griffith to the modern era and raises important issues, such as the link between advances in

motion picture technology, genre, marketing, and film form––issues which remain consistent

concerns of study throughout the course.

The second section, The Impact of Special Effects, conducts a more focused

investigation of modern blockbuster subgenres, such as the disaster film and the horror and

science fiction film, as showcases and testing grounds for the rapidly advancing and ever more

important special effects technologies of the past thirty years. It goes without saying that this

investigation must be linked to an understanding of the industry's changing economic structure

which supports and underscores these developments. Key issues in this section include the

incorporation of the studio system as part of multinational conglomerates, technological

innovations in multimedia with the impact of advances made in the digital manipulation of sound

and image, computer morphing, the increasing sophistication of matting techniques and blue

screen technologies, and the exponential growth of production budgets and values.

The third section analyzes the links between marketing strategies, changing demographics

(the teen market), and the collapse of genres and their subordination to what has come to be

called "the summer movie event." Here, the course makes a deliberate effort to expand the

spectrum of film texts under investigation away from the high-tech action spectacle toward such

genres as the musical and the comedy and it encourages students to study the hybridization of

genres in relation to new target markets. Here as well as in other sections, we will also

investigate the new economic power of stars and the changing exhibition scene with the advent

of multiplex theaters.

The fourth section introduces a consideration of the study of gender and gender relations

to the Blockbuster. We will try to touch on this aspect already in section III by relating the

phenomenon of male buddies to considerations of masculinity. In the fourth section, we will

study the potentials and limitations of feminist appropriations of two major blockbuster texts, the

Alien films and The Silence of the Lambs.

Section five seeks to correlate some previous discourses of the course to an analysis of

the marketing of high-tech movies. Students will work autonomously to summarize and apply the

specific dynamics of industrial consolidation necessary to support mega-budget films. The key

term of this section is "franchising." Although marketing has always been a component of the

Hollywood profit machine, the marketing of Spielberg and Lucas through the Star Wars and

Indiana Jones trilogies, and the hyperbolic, self-reflexive marketing of Spielberg's Jurassic Park

take the concept of entertainment as commodity to a new dimension of spectatorial address.

Summary of Course Objectives:

- Students familiarize themselves with the Blockbuster as a historically, culturally, and

economically specific mode of production, a marketing philosophy and a consumer

phenomenon

- Students study the historical evolution of the relation between technological innovation

and big budget studio production (wide screen cinema, CGE, CGI, digital technology)

- Students read Variety and other trade journals and understand the significance of industry

news and industry talk

- Students receive an introduction to industry restructuring since the 70s (mergers,

acquisitions, take overs in the era of “post-classical” cinema) and historicize the state of

film distribution and exhibition in the North American market since 1975 (the evolution

of distribution patterns and exhibition sites)

- Students study the shifting significance and roles of domestic versus international box

office and the emergence of alternative exhibition markets (tv, cable, vhs, dvd, pay-per-

view)

- Students gain knowledge of major critical paradigms and methodological approaches

within film studies and the humanities to the Blockbuster [critical studies-related analysis

of industry marketing principles; cultural studies approaches to spectatorship (theories of

sex and gender) and ideology (the relationship between narrative, spectacle, and

ideology); film theory debates relating to special effects technology (realism and the

simulacrum); allegory and mode of production, etc.

- Students learn to summarize and condense their in-class work into cogent issues and

questions and formulate these for debate

- Students give oral presentations, learn how to become students of Communications

Required Texts:

Justin Wyatt, High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. (Austin: University of

Texas Press, 1994).

Julian Stringer ed., Movie Blockbusters (London: Routledge, 2003)

Jean Baudrillard, Simulations (Semiotexte)

Andre Bazin, What is Cinema? Vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press)

Required Additional Course Readings:

Readings will be on the course website

Grade Breakdown:

In-class Presentations: 25%

Note Cards/Overall Quality of Class Participation: 25%

Final paper: 50%

Course Requirements:

Regular attendance is mandatory. Attendance will be monitored at the beginning of

class. Anyone who is not present at the time when attendance is taken will be marked as absent

for the day. This mark will not be changed to "late," if the student shows up a few minutes after

the taking of attendance by the instructor. This needs to be taken into consideration by anyone,

whose scheduling conflicts may not permit them to get to class on time! Anyone with more than

two unexcused absences over the course of the semester jeopardizes the attendance part of the

grade. Excused absences are instances of a student having to miss class because of higher

circumstances outside the student's control that can and, by any means, must be documented. It

is imperative that these need to be discussed with the instructor, if possible before the absence

occurs.

Note Cards/Discussion: Students are to fill in one note card per session with three

major points that they feel capable of discussing during class. These points must relate to the

film and to the clips viewed the previous session and at least one point must comment on/expand

on/critique at least one of the assigned readings for that session. I will collect these cards during

every session and call on several students to read their cards and to expand on their ideas in the

form of class comments.

Final Presentations: Each student will participate in a presentation group to present the

last three sessions of the course. Goal of the presentations is to summarize, synthesize, and apply

the knowledge gained throughout the class to the three case studies (Spielberg, Lucas, Batman).

As soon as presentation have been assigned, students must come see me as per appointment to

discuss/prepare for presentation.

Final papers are 2,700 words (minimum) for undergraduates, 3,000 words

(minimum) for graduate students. Options for final papers: a) the final paper is an

individualized argument relating to a historical blockbuster (does not have to be on the syllabus)

or b) a review of a current blockbuster, which incorporates some of the discourses of this course

or c) may be based on the student‟s end-of-course presentation, but must represent an

advancement and more in-depth discussion of the subject matter dealt with in the presentation.

Students must submit a two-to-three paragraph paper proposal to me by email by August 6.

Students may proceed with writing the paper only after having received clearance from me.

All papers will be read by me personally. The teaching assistant will assist in grading

process of undergraduate papers by marking factual mistakes, spelling, grammar, etc, and by

submitting suggested grades. All final grades on papers and otherwise will be determined

only by me.

Important! Students will not have the opportunity to compensate for weak grades by

doing extra work––this is unfair to the rest of the class and results in a distorted gpa.

Plagiarism:

"Plagiarism is the act of representing someone else's creative and/or academic work as your own,

in full or in part. It can be an act of commission, in which one intentionally appropriates the

words, pictures or ideas of another, or it can be an act of omission, in which one fails to

acknowledge/document/give credit to the source, creator and/or the copyright owner of those

words, pictures or ideas. Any fabrication of materials, quotes or sources, other than those created

in a work of fiction, is also plagiarism. Plagiarism is the most serious academic offense that you

can commit and can result in probation, suspension, or expulsion."

Section I:

The Modern Blockbuster

Wed May 25:

The Birth of the Modern Blockbuster

Screening: The Exorcist (1973, William Friedkin dir.)

Excerpts: Jaws (1976, Steven Spielberg dir.)

Readings: Thomas Schatz, “The New Hollywood,” in Stringer, 15-44.

Michael Allen, “Talking about a Revolution: the Blockbuster as Industrial

Advertisement,” in Stringer ed., Movie Blockbusters, 101-113.

Steven Neale, “Hollywood Blockbusters: Historical Dimensions,”

In Stringer, 47-60.

Robin Wood, "The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70s," ––––,

Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1986), 70-94.

Justin Wyatt, High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood

(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 1-22; 109-154.

Section II:

The Impact of Special Effects on the Blockbuster

Wed June 1:

Special Effects, Genre, and Marketing II: Disaster Movies Now and Then

Screening: The Poseidon Inferno (1972, Ronald Neame dir.)

The Day After Tomorrow (2004, Roland Emmerich dir.)

Excerpts: Twister (1995, Jan de Bont dir.)

Readings: Justin Wyatt, "High Concept and Market Research: Movie Making By the

Numbers," ––––, High Concept, 155-187.

Douglas Gomery, “The Hollywood Blockbuster: Industrial Analysis and

Practice,” in Stringer, 72-83.

Tino Balio, “ „A Major Presence in all of the World‟s Important Markets‟:

The Globalization of Hollywood in the 1990s,” in Contemporary

Hollywood Cinema. Eds. Steven Neale and Murray Smith (New

York and London: Routledge, 1998), 58-73.

Maurice Yacowar, "The Bug in the Rug: Notes on the Disaster Genre,"

Barry Keith Grant ed., Film Genre Reader II (Austin: University

of Texas Press, 1995), 261-279.

Mon June 6:

High Tech as High Concept: James Cameron

Screening: Terminator 2 (1991, James Cameron dir.)

Excerpts: The Abyss (1988, James Cameron dir.)

Titanic (1997, James Cameron dir.)

Readings: Geoff King, “Spectacle, Narrative, and the Spectacular Hollywood

Blockbuster,” in Stringer, 114-127.

Janice Hocker Rushing and Thomas Frentz, "Terminator 2: Judgement

Day: Effacing the Shadow," Projecting the Shadow, 182-201.

Michael Allen, “Talking about a Revolution: the Blockbuster as Industrial

Advertisement,” in Stringer ed., Movie Blockbusters, 101-113.

Student Presentation: Avatar and 3D

Wed June 8:

Mixed-Race Blockbuster Buddies

Screening: Men in Black (1997, Barry Sonnenfeld dir.)

Excerpts: Men in Black 2 (2002, Barry Sonnenfeld dir.)

Rush Hour (2000, Brett Ratner dir.)

Rush Hour 2 (2002, Brett Ratner dir.)

Readings: Justin Wyatt, "High Concept and Changes in the Market for

Entertainment," High Concept, 65-108.

Yvonne Tasker, “Black Buddies and White Heroes: Racial Discourse in

the Action Cinema,” in Tasker, Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the

Action Cinema (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), 35-53.

Thu June 9 (make-up for Memorial Day class):

International Blockbuster

Screening: Hero (Zhang Yimou)

Readings:

Tan Ye, “From the Fifth to the Sixth Generation: An Interview with Zhang

Yimou,” in Film Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 2, 1999-2000, p. 2-13

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1213716

Yingjin Zhang, “Industry and Ideology: A Centennial Review of Chinese

Cinema,” in World Literature Today, Vol. 77, No. ¾, p. 8-13

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40158167

Jia-xuan Zhang, “Hero,” in Film Quarterly, vol. 58, no. 4, pp. 47-52,

University of California Press, 2005.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/fq.2005.58.4.47

Robert Mackey, “Cracking the Color Code of „Hero‟”, in The New York

Times, Aug. 15, 2004.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/movies/film-cracking-the-

color-code-of-hero.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Robert Y. Eng, “Is HERO a Paean to Authoritarianism?,” retrieved from

the UCLA Asia Media Archives,

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=14371

Gary G. Xu, “The Right to Copy and the Digital Copyright: Hero, House

of Flying Daggers, and China’s Cultural Symptoms” in

“Sinascape: Contemporary Chinese Cinema”, Lanham, MD:

Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, p. 25-47

Student Presentation: Zhang Yimou and the International Blockbuster (Rachel)

Section IV:

Gender

Mon June 13:

Postmodern Femininity: Angelina Jolie

Screening: Tomb Raider

Wanted

Salt

Readings: Thomas Doherty, "Genre, Gender, and the Aliens Trilogy,"

in Barry Keith Grant ed. The Film Genre Reader II, 181-199.

Yvonne Tasker, “Action Heroines in the 1980s: The Limits of

„Musculinity,‟” in Tasker, Spectacular Bodies, 132-152.

Will Brooker, “Internet Fandom and the Continuing Narratives of

Star Wars, Blade Runner and Alien,” in Annette Kuhn ed.,

Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science Fiction Cinema.

(London: Verso, 1999), 50-72.

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," in Rosen,

Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology, pp. 198-209.

Student Presentation: Tomb Raider (Logan)

Jolie

Wed June 15:

Johnny Depp and Gender

Screening: Pirates of the Carribean

Readings:

Brandon Gray, “‟Pirates‟ Raid Record Books,” Box Office Mojo, July 10,

2006, http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2111&p=.htm

Scott Holleran, “Close Up: Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio on „Dead Man‟s

Chest,” Box Office Mojo, July 8, 2006,

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/features/?id=2110&p=.htm

Claudia Eller and Dawn Chmielewski, “Not Even Bruckheimer Movies

can Escape Budget Cuts,” The Los Angeles Times, May 03, 2010,

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/03/business/la-fi-ct-

bruckheimer-20100427

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man‟s Chest” production notes, Made in

Atlantis, http://madeinatlantis.com/pirates/production/

Eric Hynes, “Johnny Depp‟s Adventures in Gender-Bending,” Slate,

March 8th

, 2010. http://www.slate.com/id/2246933/ (make sure you

view the clips in the video slide show – link in the box on the left,

as well as at the bottom of the article)

Student Presentation: Johnny Depp (Nina)

Section V:

Franchising

Mon June 20:

Animation: Franchising and Style

Screening: Kung Fu Panda

Toy Story

Readings:

Sam Crane, “Taoism for Kids, with Reflections on Orientalism,” Sam

Crane‟s personal blog, June 18, 2008 -

http://uselesstree.typepad.com/useless_tree/2008/06/taoism-for-

kids.html

Richard Bernstein, “The Panda that Roared,” The New York Times, July

20, 2008 -

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/weekinreview/20bernstein.ht

ml?_r=1&ref=weekinreview&oref=slogin

Maureen Fan, “‟Kung Fu Panda‟ Hits a Sore Spot in China,” The

Washington Post, July 12, 2008 -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-

dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071103281_pf.html

Student Presentation: Animation Franchises (Ryan)

Wed June 22:

Vampires and Teens: Twilight Saga

Screening:

Readings:

J.M. Tyree, “Warm Blooded: True Blood and Let the Right One In,” in

Film

Quarterly,Vol. 63, No. 2, pp. 31-37,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/FQ.2009.63.2.31

Brooks Barnes, “Crowds Flock to Vampires (of Course) and „Airbender‟

(Surprise!), The New York Times, July 5th

, 2010

http://www.lexisnexis.com.ezproxy.bu.edu/lnacui2api/results/docv

iew/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T12081332769&form

at=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=2

9_T12081332772&cisb=22_T12081332771&treeMax=true&tree

Width=0&csi=6742&docNo=18

Student Presentation: The Twilight Saga (Marta)

Mon June 27:

Postmodern Perfection: X-Men

Screening: X-Men (2000; Bryan Singer dir.)

X 2 (2002; Bryan Singer dir.)

Readings: Douglas Gomery, "Hollywood Corporate Business Practice and

Periodizing Contemporary Film History," Steve Neale and

Murray Smith eds., Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

(New York: Routledge, 1998), 45-57.

Michael Allen, "From Bwana Devil to Batman Forever: Technology

in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, Neale and Smith eds.,

Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, 107-129.

Eileen Meehan, “ „Holy Commodity Fetish, Batman!”” The Political

Economy of a Commercial Intertext,” in The Many Lives of the

Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and his Media.

Roberta E. Pearson and William Uricchio eds. (New York and

London: BFI Publishing, 1991), 47-65.

[Note: obviously, the last two readings are not on X-Men;

however, they are still applicable!]

Student Presentation: The X-Men Franchise (Bryony)

Wed June 29: Papers Due in Class!!! No Extensions!!!

Generation Harry Potter

Excerpts: Various Harry Potter Films

Readings: Warren Buckland, "A Close Encounter with Raiders of the Lost Ark:

Notes on Narrative Aspects of the New Hollywood Blockbuster,"

Smith and Neale eds., Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, 166-177.

[Note: obviously not on Harry Potter, but applicable!]

Philip Nel, “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bored: Harry Potter, the Movie,” in

Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Oct,

2002), pp 172-175, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40015438

Student Presentation: Harry Potter (Helen)

Additional recommended Readings for each Session:

Wed. May 25:

David Cook, A History of Narrative Film, 461-479

Peter Wollen, "Ontology and Materialism in Film," in Wollen, Readings and Writings, pp. 189-

207.

Janice Hocker Rushing and Thomas Frentz, "Jaws: Faces of the Shadow," ––––, Projecting the

Shadow: The Cyborg in American Film (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 78-99.

Wed. June 1:

Michael Warner, "The Mass Public and the Mass Subject," in Bruce Robbins ed., The Phantom

Public Sphere (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1993), 234-256

William M. Donald, "Dazzled or Dazed? The Wide Impact of Special Effects," New York

Times, May 3, 1998, 42-43.

Jim Hoberman, "Apocalypse Now and Then: A Short History of the Cinema of Catastrophe,"

Village Voice, May 19, 1998, 70-75.

Mon Jun 6:

Michele Pierson, Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder (New York: Columbia University

Press, 2002)(particularly chapters 3 and 4!)

Gillian Roberts, “Circulations of Taste: Titanic, the Oscars, and the Middlebrow,” in Stringer,

155-166.

Sharon Willis, "Combative Femininity: Thelma and Louise and Terminator 2," ––––, High

Contrast, 98-128.

Stephen Prince, “The Emergence of Filmic Artifacts: Cinema and Cinematography in the Digital

Era,” Film Quarterly, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Spring 2004), pp. 24-33.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/fq.2004.57.3.24

Wed Jun 8:

Gilles Deleuze, "Plato and the Simulacrum," October 27 (1983), pp. 45-53.

Marcos Becquer, "Snap!thology and Other Discursive Practices in Tongues Untied," Wide Angle

13:2 (April 1991), pp. 5-15.

Scott Bukatman, Terminal Identity (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press)

Thu Jun 9:

Teresa De Lauretis, "Through the Looking Glass," in Rosen, pp. 360-372.

Jackie Stacey, "Desperately Seeking Difference," in Patricia Ehrens ed., Issues in Feminist Film

Criticism, pp. 365-379.

Olivia Khoo, “Remaking the Past, Interrupting the Present: Spaces of Technology and Futurity in

Contemporary Chinese Blockbusters.” In Olivia Khoo and Sean Metzger, eds., Futures of Chinese

Cinema: Technologies and Temporalities in Chinese Screen Cultures. Bristol: Intellect Press/

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 241-262

Ying Zhu and Bruce Robinson, “The Cinematic Transition of the Fifth Generation Auteurs,” in Art

Politics, and Commer ce in Chinese Cinema, Ying Zhu and Stanley Rosen, eds., Aberdeen, HK:

Hong Kong University Press, 2010

Mon June 13:

Sabrina Barton, "Your Self-Storage: Female Investigation and Male Performativity in the

Woman's Psychothriller," Jon Lewis ed., The New American Cinema (Durham: Duke University

Press, 1998), 187-216

Mark Seltzer, “The Serial Killer as a Type of Person,” in The Horror Reader. Ken Gelder ed.

(London and New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 97-110.

Wed. June 15:

Stephen Heath, "Narrative Space, " in Philip Rosen ed. Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology, pp. 379-

420.

Mon Jun 20:

Bill Brown, “How to Do Things with Things (A Toy Story),” Critical Inquiry, vol. 24, no. 4

(Summer 1998), 935-964 – http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1344113.pdf

Wed Jun 22:

Franco Moretti, “Dialectic of Fear,” in The New Left Review, No. 136 (Nov-Dec. 1982), pp. 67-85

http://www.english.upenn.edu/Projects/knarf/Articles/moretti.html

Bibliography:

Balio, Tino, The American Film Industry (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 19833)

Belton, John, Widescreen Cinema (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992)

–––– ed., Movies and Mass Culture (New Brunswick, NJ.: Rutgers University Press, 1996)

Biskind, Peter, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation

Saved Hollywood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998)

––––, "Making Crime Pay," Premiere, August, 1997, 80-109.

––––, "The Last Crusade," Mark Crispin Miller ed., Seeing Through Movies (New York:

Pantheon, 1990), 112-149.

Brodie, Douglas, The Films of the Eighties (New York: Citadel Press, 1990

Brosnan, John, Movie Magic: The Story of Special Effects (New York: NAL, 1976)

Bukatman, Scott, Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction

(Durham: Duke University Press, 1993)

Gagin, Seth and Philllip Dray, Hollywood Films of the Seventies: Sex, Drugs, Violence, Rock 'N'

Roll and Politics (New York: Harper & Row, 1984)

Carroll, Noel, "The Future of an Illusion: Hollywood in the Seventies (and beyond)," October 20

(Spring 1982), 51-81

Cotta Vaz, Mark and Patricia Rose, Industrial Light and Magic: Into the Digital (New York:

Ballantine, 1996)

Dyer, Richard, Stars (London: BFI Publishing, 1979)

Grant, Barry Keith ed., The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Modern Horror Film (Austin:

University of Texas Press, 1996)

–––– ed., Film Genre Reader II (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995)

Hayward, Philip and Tana Wollen, Future Visions: New Technologies of the Screen (London:

BFI Publishing, 1993)

Hocker Rushing, Janice and Thomas Frentz, Projecting the Shadow: The Cyborg in American

Film (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995)

Hollows, Joanne and Mark Jancovich, Approaches to Popular Film (Manchester: Manchester

University Publishers, 1995)

Holmlund, Christine, "New Cold War Sequels and Remakes," Jump Cut 35 (April 1990), 85-96

David Kamp, "When Liz Met Dick," Vanity Fair, April 1998, 366-394.

Kolker, Robert Phillip, A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Kubrick, Coppola, Scorsese, Altman

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980)

Kuhn, Annette, Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema

(London:

Verso, 1990)

Lebo, Harlan, The Godfather Legacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997)

Lewis, Jon, Whom God Wishes to Destroy . . . Francis Ford Coppola and the New Hollywood

(Durham: Duke University Press, 1995)

–––– ed., The New American Cinema (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998)

Marshall, P. David, Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture (Minneapolis:

Minnesota University Press, 1997)

McBride, Joseph, Steven Spielberg: A Biography (New York: Da Capo Press, 1999)

Millar, D., Special Effects (New Jersey: Chartwell, 1990)

Miller, Mark Crispin, Seeing Through Movies (New York: Pantheon, 1990)

Miller, Stephen Paul, The Seventies Now: Culture as Surveillance (Durham: Duke University

Press, 1999)

Monaco, James, American Film Now (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990)

Muson, Chris, The Marketing of Motion Pictures (Los Angeles: AFI, 1969)

Neale, Steve and Murray Smith ed., Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (New York: Routledge,

1998)

New York Times Magazine Special Issue on the Two Hollywoods, November 16, 1997, 75-164.

Natoli, Joseph, Hauntings: Popular Film and American Culture 1990-1992 (Albany: State

University of New York, 1994)

Palmer, William J., The Films of the Eighties: A Social History (Carbondale and Edwardsville:

Southern Illinois University Press, 1993)

Pollock, Dale, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas (New York: French, 1983,

1990)

Prince, Stephen, Visions of Empire: Political Imagery in Contemporary American Film (New

York: Praeger, 1992)

Pye, Michael and Lynda Myles, The Movie Brats: How the Film Generation Took over

Hollywood (New York: Holt, 1979)

Ryan, Micahel and Douglas Kellner, Camera Politica: The Politics and Ideology of

Contemporary

Hollywood Film (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988)

Sharrett, Christopher, Mythologies of Violence in Postmodern Media (Detroit: Wayne State

University Press, 1999)

Smith, Thomas G., Industrial Light and Magic: The Art of Special Effects (New York:

Ballantine,

1986)

Sobchack, Vivian, Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film (New York: Ungar,

1988)

Strick, Philip, Science Fiction Movies (London: Octopus, 1976)

Tasker, Yvonne, Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre, and the Action Cinema (New York:

Routledge, 1993)

Telotte, J. P., Replications: A Robotic History of the Science Fiction Film (Urbana: University

of Illinois Press, 1995)

Traube, Elizabeth, Dreaming Identities: Class, Gender, and Generation in 1980's Hollywood

Movies (New Jersey: Westview Press, 1992)

Gunde, Kenneth, Postmodern Auteurs: Coppola, Lucas, De Palma, Spielberg, and Scorsese

(Jefferson: McFarland, 1991)

Wasko, Janet, Hollywood in the Information Age (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994)

Wood, Robin, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (New York: Columbia University Press,

1988)

Wyatt, Justin, High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood (Austin: University of

Texas Press, 1994)

Rick Altman, "Where Do Genres Come From?"––Eight Hypotheses on Generic Beginnings

Excerpted from: Rick Altman, Film/Genre (London: BFI Publishing, 1999), 33-48.

For class room use only

1. "Films often gain generic identity from similar defects and failures rather than

from shared qualities and triumphs."

2. "The early history of film genres is characterized, it would seem, not by

purposeful borrowing from a single pre-existing non-film parent genre, but by

apparently incidental borrowing from several unrelated genres."

3. "Even when a genre already exists in other media, the film genre of the same

name cannot simply be borrowed from non-film sources, it must be recreated."

4. "Before they are fully constituted through the junction of persistent material and

consistent use of that material, nascent genres traverse a period when their only

unity derives from shared surface characteristics deployed within other generic

contexts perceived as dominant."

5. "Films are always available for redefinition––and thus genres for realignment––

because the very process of staying in the black involves reconfiguring films."

6. "Genres begin as reading positions established by studio personnel acting as

critics, and expressed through film-making conceived as an act of applied

criticism."

7. "If the first step in genre production is the creation of a reading position through

critical dissection, and the second is reinforcement of that position through film

production, the required third step is broad industry acceptance of the proposed

reading position and genre."

8. "The generic terminology we have inherited is primarily retrospective in nature;

though it may provide tools corresponding to our needs, it fails to capture the

variety of needs evinced by previous producers, exhibitors, spectators and other

generic users."