American culture after the end of World War II has been characterized by an abiding pessimism most clearly manifested in the film noirs of the period. Mike Chopra-Gant challenges this "noir and Zeitgeist" reading and proposes that the view of American cinema and society it develops relies on a retrospective re-imagining of the era, based on the erroneous promotion of selected movies. His vigorous revisionist account of the films and culture of the period also challenges traditional approaches to genre, to masculinity and the family, by focusing on key themes in the most popular films in terms of box office revenues, including Best Years of Our Lives, Night and Day, Scarlet Street and Gilda.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Mike Chopra-Grant is Lecturer in Cultural Studies at London Metropolitan University.
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New View of the Post War Movies,
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This review is from: Hollywood Genres and Post-war America: Masculinity, Family and Nation in Popular Movies and Film Noir (Cinema and Society) (Paperback)
The commonly held opinion about American movies in the years 1946-50 is that they reflect a culture that was having a crisis of masculinity, a perception of widespread corruption in society and a prevailing sense of gloom, pesimism and cynicism.In this book Chopra-Gant presents a revisionist view of the films of this period. He argues that the wrong films were studied to generate this view. Instead he researched the most popular films (in terms of revenue generated) of 1946 and in these films the tone is quite different. Many of these films instead show the triumph of American beliefs - democracy, classlessness and individualism. One point he discusses is the fall off in revenue spent on movies after 1947. He does not supply a reson for this, but I suspect that it had nothing to do with the movies, instead it had to do with the start of the baby boom. Younger people, and dating people tend to go to the movies a lot more than married people who now have an infant at home.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
This book is concerned with American popular films and culture in the period immediately following the end of the Second World War. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
musical biopics, soldierly masculinity, patriarchal continuity, classless democracy, performative masculinities, noir canon, status inversion, diegetic character, sign equipment, postwar discourses, immigrant identities, buddy relationship, performative identity, most popular films, postwar films, star persona, star character, early postwar period, paternal absence, film noir, rental revenues, film scholars Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Madame Sebastian, Blue Skies, Our Lines, Second World War, Jolson Story, New Orleans, Saratoga Trunk, Grandma Leckie, Our Lives, Scarlet Street, Asa Yoelson, United States, Bosley Crowther, Fred Astaire, Mary Elizabeth, Saratoga Springs, Steve Neale, The Big Sleep, Alan Ladd, Christopher Cross, Fred Derry, Jerome Kern, John Houseman, Jolson Sings Again, Steve Martin New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
This book is concerned with American popular films and culture in the period immediately following the end of the Second World War. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
musical biopics, soldierly masculinity, patriarchal continuity, classless democracy, performative masculinities, noir canon, status inversion, diegetic character, sign equipment, postwar discourses, immigrant identities, buddy relationship, performative identity, most popular films, postwar films, star persona, star character, early postwar period, paternal absence, film noir, rental revenues, film scholars Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Madame Sebastian, Blue Skies, Our Lines, Second World War, Jolson Story, New Orleans, Saratoga Trunk, Grandma Leckie, Our Lives, Scarlet Street, Asa Yoelson, United States, Bosley Crowther, Fred Astaire, Mary Elizabeth, Saratoga Springs, Steve Neale, The Big Sleep, Alan Ladd, Christopher Cross, Fred Derry, Jerome Kern, John Houseman, Jolson Sings Again, Steve Martin New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 95
books:
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1
book
cites this book:
- Hollywood Musicals by Clive Hirschhorn in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care: 2 by Benjamin Spock on page 65, page 181, and Back Matter
- The Movie Book by Editors of Phaidon Press in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- The Cinema Book by Pam Cook on page 3, and Back Matter
- The Crowded Prairie: American National Identity in the Hollywood Western (Cinema and Society Series) by Michael Coyne in Front Matter, and Back Matter
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