Looking back on a century that witnessed the emergence of motion pictures to become, almost immediately, a dominant cultural force in our lives, this penetrating and provocative book argues that "movies (like cathedrals) cannot help but display the subconscious impulses oftheir society." From D.W. Griffith to the Marx Brothers to film noir, "what are conceived and consumed as innocent pop movies ... are in fact manifestations of wild horror, superstitious ignorance, fatalistic dread and bigoted savagery."
Son of Sayville, New York, Michael Atkinson is the author of seven books, including a debut novel, HEMINGWAY DEADLIGHTS (St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books, 2009), and the second in its series, HEMINGWAY CUTTHROAT, coming in 2010.
He is a longtime film and culture critic, Googleable at Sight & Sound, The Boston Phoenix, The Guardian, The Believer, Moving Image Source, Modern Painters, IFC.com, TCM.com, Film Comment, The Village Voice, The Forward, Chicago Reader, The Progressive, In These Times, The Stranger, The American Prospect, Movieline (Hollywood Life), poetryfoundation.org, GOOD, Maxim, Details, Detour, Hollywood Life, Greencine.com, The Criterion Collection, Philadelphia City Paper, etc.
Other books include FLICKIPEDIA: Perfect Movies for Every Occasion, Holiday, Season, Mood, Ordeal and Whim (Chicago Review Press), EXILE CINEMA: Filmmakers At Work Beyond Hollywood (SUNY Press), GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE: Speculating on the Dark Heart of Pop Cinema (Limelight Eds.) and BLUE VELVET (British Film Institute).
He is also a widely published poet, with the debut collection ONE HUNDRED CHILDREN WAITING FOR A TRAIN (Word Works), and poems recently Michigan Quarterly Review, Zone 3, Mudfish, Phoebe, Passages North, Cimarron Review, Rhino, Carolina Quarterly and New Letters.
He is a professor of film at C.W. Post/Long Island University, a father of three, a (dormant) member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and a screenwriter, of among other things, a notorious TV pilot, BABYLON FIELDS (CBS), starring Amber Tamblyn, Ray Stevenson, Jamey Sheridan and Kathy Baker, unaired but easily found online.
His author site is www.mike-atkinson.com, and his blog resides at www.zeroforconduct.com.
