Empire of Dreams is the first definitive look at all of the science fiction (SF), fantasy, and horror films directed by Steven Spielberg, one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the world today. In the 1970s and 1980s, along with George Lucas, Spielberg helped spark the renaissance of American SF and fantasy film, and he has remained highly productive and prominent in these genres ever since. SF, fantasy, and horror films form the bulk of his work for over thirty years; of the twenty-six theatrical features he directed from 1971 to 2005, sixteen are of these genres, a coherent and impressive body of work. His films have become part of a global consciousness and his cinematic style part of the visual vocabulary of world media.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Andrew Gordon has produced an exhaustive investigation of this major part of Spielberg's oeuvre—appreciative but also critical, finding the complexities inside films that superficial critics have dismissed as childish or manipulative. It's very rewarding to mentally rewind and watch them again with Professor Gordon's insights playing along. (Joe Haldeman )
This is a highly desirable book on a highly necessary topic. Such a major cultural force requires a major study. Well, here it is... (Aldiss, Brian )
Eminently readable and including good photographs, references after each chapter, and a detailed index, this book should have a broad readership....Recommended. All readers, all levels. (April 2008, Vol. 45 No. 08 Choice )
Gordon's book is...engagingly written....Gordon seems able effortlessly to transform any Spielberg film into an example of the logic of any particular psychological or psychoanalytical framework he finds at hand—a number of passages would...provide undergraduates with a clear sense of how mutually to understand a theoretical structure and a film narrative. (Science Fiction Film And Television )
Offers the most comprehensive review of the critical receptions and readings of Spielberg's sf, fantasy, and horror films….His chapters can be easily excerpted for film students….Gordon's book is both intelligent and fun to read….It is worth a read. (Journal Of The Fantastic In The Arts )
It was a pleasure to have a 'close encounter' with this take on Spielberg's science fiction and fantasy oeuvre. I simply could not put it down! Gordon's adroit use of insightful research coupled with an engaging, accessible writing style and solid organization makes this book useful to readers who range from the general public to the academic expert to students. In short, Gordon boldly goes where no critic has gone before in relation to Spielberg. (Barr, Marleen S. )
This is a highly desirable book on a highly necessary topic. Such a major cultural force requires a major study. Well, here it is... (Aldiss, Brian )
Eminently readable and including good photographs, references after each chapter, and a detailed index, this book should have a broad readership....Recommended. All readers, all levels. (April 2008, Vol. 45 No. 08 Choice )
Gordon's book is...engagingly written....Gordon seems able effortlessly to transform any Spielberg film into an example of the logic of any particular psychological or psychoanalytical framework he finds at hand—a number of passages would...provide undergraduates with a clear sense of how mutually to understand a theoretical structure and a film narrative. (Science Fiction Film And Television )
Offers the most comprehensive review of the critical receptions and readings of Spielberg's sf, fantasy, and horror films….His chapters can be easily excerpted for film students….Gordon's book is both intelligent and fun to read….It is worth a read. (Journal Of The Fantastic In The Arts )
It was a pleasure to have a 'close encounter' with this take on Spielberg's science fiction and fantasy oeuvre. I simply could not put it down! Gordon's adroit use of insightful research coupled with an engaging, accessible writing style and solid organization makes this book useful to readers who range from the general public to the academic expert to students. In short, Gordon boldly goes where no critic has gone before in relation to Spielberg. (Barr, Marleen S. )
About the Author
Andrew M. Gordon is associate professor of English at the University of Florida and director of the Institute for the Psychological Study of the Arts. He is the author of An American Dreamer: A Psychoanalytic Study of the Fiction of Norman Mailer, co-editor (with Peter Rudnytsky) of Psychoanalyses/Feminisms, and co-author (with HernOn Vera) of Screen Saviors: Hollywood Fictions of Whiteness, and has many articles and reviews on contemporary American fiction and film, particularly science-fiction film.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Spielberg Explained, with Brilliance and Cinema Scholarship,
This review is from: Empire of Dreams: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Films of Steven Spielberg (Hardcover)
Steven Spielberg is, without doubt, one of the most gifted and imaginative filmmakers of his generation. To my mind, he has few, if any equals in making films that can profoundly move an audience, excite and enlighten anybody watching truth flicker by at the requisite 24 frames per second. You walk out of "Jaws," as many of us did, knowing you've been frightened half to death, yet also knowing that you've seen great filmmaking at work, the best of the medium, a pure "movie movie," as it was once called when I was kicking around Hollywood in my early days as a writer and journalist.
It was all there, of course, early on, if you want to go back in film history and check out his first feature "Duel." And it's been an amazing ride ever since, from "Jaws" and "ET" to "Indiana Jones" and "Schindler's List" and beyond to "Minority Report" and "War of the Worlds." Spielberg never ceases to amaze and dazzle the audience with his command of the medium. Now Andrew Gordon has explained, in great detail, why and how. In his masterful, brilliant study of Spielberg's career, Gordon provides an in-depth look at each of the several dozen or more films that comprise the master's work. The various of pieces of Spielberg's career and the critical responses to his movies are woven together in a rich tapestry of film scholarship. Gordon has done his homework in spades. His insights into the Spielberg canon are both illuminating and astute. This is no easy task, given the range of emotions that each Spielberg movie appears to evoke. Gordon steps both forward and back in assessing how he reacted to each picture, and how others reacted. In particular, I liked Gordon's chapter on Spielberg's "A.I.," the movie he finished for Stanley Kubrick. Although not a great commercial success, and one that certainly divided the critics, I still remember parts of the film with greater recall and emotional resonance than other Spielberg creations. Gordon, again, explains why, digging with psychological clarity into the various themes of the lost child expressed in the story. The beauty of Gordon's book is that he is able to connect the various and complex themes that run through Spielberg's work from film to film; we see continuity, interrelationships, the struggle of the artist at work, the hits and misses, and ultimately, the ways in which we always, seemingly, happen to return to the world of Spielberg's boyhood home in suburbia, to all the hopes and promises of the American dream itself. If you're a film scholar, this book is must reading; if your interest in Spielberg is casual and curious, you'll find the text to be highly informative, with penetrating insight into the artist and his remarkable style of filmmaking.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
First Rate for Scholars and GeneralAudiences alike!,
By Ned Fitzsimmons "Ned Fitzsimmons" (St. Petersburg, FL, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Empire of Dreams: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Films of Steven Spielberg (Paperback)
Shakespeare states, 'We are such stuff as dreams are made on...'. Professor Gordon has authored a tome remarkable both for its breadth AND depth. Having written and optioned several screenplays myself,I truly believe that this book is in the vanguard of Spielberg scholarship, and a fine chronicle of our creative status as remade dreams.
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