Review
"A thought-provoking collection of essays that brings contemporary cinema into serious focus. Titanic: Anatomy of a Blockbuster is wedded to movie history, to current cultural attitudes, and to its impact on viewers. Too bad someone wasn't around to do this for Gone With the Wind." -- Jeanine Basinger, chair, Film Studies Program, Wesleyan University
"If Titanic was not just another film, then this work, with its range of approaches and perspectives, is not just another anthology." -- David Desser, University of Illinois
"Intriguing perspectives on a major cultural phenomenon." -- Steven Biel, author of Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the "Titanic" Disaster
"The authors in this volume offer a first-rate examination of a question that has long vexed studies of media and popular culture: what makes a text resonate so extensively, so deeply with its audience that it becomes a public sensation? Sandler and Studlar have assembled a collection of essays that vividly and persuasively demonstrate the complexity of forces acting on the reception of what became the biggest film blockbuster of them all." -- Barbara Klinger, author of Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
"If Titanic was not just another film, then this work, with its range of approaches and perspectives, is not just another anthology." -- David Desser, University of Illinois
"Intriguing perspectives on a major cultural phenomenon." -- Steven Biel, author of Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the "Titanic" Disaster
"The authors in this volume offer a first-rate examination of a question that has long vexed studies of media and popular culture: what makes a text resonate so extensively, so deeply with its audience that it becomes a public sensation? Sandler and Studlar have assembled a collection of essays that vividly and persuasively demonstrate the complexity of forces acting on the reception of what became the biggest film blockbuster of them all." -- Barbara Klinger, author of Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
From the Back Cover
On April 14, 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg. Taking more than 1500 souls with her, the ship sank on what was intended to be its glorious maiden voyage. In 1997, eighty-five years after this tragedy, James Cameron's Titanic became the highest-grossing film in North America, and shortly thereafter, the first motion picture to earn a billion dollars worldwide.
The cultural studies and film scholars who have contributed thirteen essays to this collection ask the key question-Why? What made the Titanic such a popular movie? What makes it so fascinating to the film-going public? Contributors address questions of the representations of class, sexuality, and gender and analyze the cross-cultural reception of the film in nationally specific contexts. In addition, they address Titanic's multifaceted relationships to genre, history, celebrities, and contemporary social and economic concerns. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
