Visions of Paradise: Images of Eden in the Cinema [Paperback]

Wheeler Winston Dixon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 2006

"Visions of Paradise is a fantastic voyage into the social and cultural history of cinema, exploring the utopian imagination and questions of belief through a discussion of a fascinating array of European and Hollywood cinematic forms."—Marcia Landy, author of Monty Python’s Flying Circus "During this leisurely cruise through cinema's utopian dreams—its endless summers, surf cities, pajama parties, and beach blanket Babylons—Dixon unearths the paradox of paradise, the schizoid foundation beneath every vision of Eden."—Mikita Brottman, Professor of Language, Literature & Culture, Maryland Institute College of Art Depictions of sex, violence, and crime abound in many of today’s movies, sometimes making it seem that the idyllic life has vanished—even from our imaginations. But as shown in this unique book, paradise has not always been lost. For many years, depictions of heaven, earthly paradises, and utopias were common in popular films.

Illustrated throughout with intriguing, rare stills, and organized to provide historical context, Visions of Paradise surveys a huge array of films that have offered us glimpses of life free from strife, devoid of pain and privation, and full of harmony. In films such as Moana, White Shadows in the South Seas, The Green Pastures, Heaven Can Wait, The Enchanted Forest, The Bishop’s Wife, Carousel, Bikini Beach, and Elvira Madigan, characters and the audience partake in a vision of personal freedom and safety—a zone of privilege and protection that transcends the demands of daily existence.

Many of the films discussed are from the 1960s—perhaps the most "Edenic" decade in contemporary cinema, when everything seemed possible and radical change was taken for granted. As Dixon makes clear, however, these films have not disappeared with the dreams of a generation; they continue to resonate today, offering a tonic to the darker visions that have replaced them.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Endowed Professor of Film Studies at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and editor of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (February 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813537983
• ISBN-13: 978-0813537986
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,817,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Endowed Professor of Film Studies, Coordinator of the UNL Film Studies Program, Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, Editor-in-Chief of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video. His newest books include A History of Horror (Rutgers University Press, 2010); Film Noir and The Cinema of Paranoia (Rutgers University Press and Edinburgh University Press, 2009); A Short History of Film, written with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, (Rutgers University Press and I.B. Tauris, 2008), which has gone through five printings, was issued in a Spanish translation from Ediciones Robinbook in November, 2009 as Breve historia del cine, and is forthcoming as an audio book from University Press Audiobooks in 2010; Film Talk: Directors at Work (Rutgers University Press, 2007); Visions of Paradise: Images of Eden in the Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 2006); American Cinema of the 1940s: Themes and Variations (Rutgers University Press, 2006); and Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood (Southern Illinois UP, 2005). In 2003, Dixon was honored with a retrospective of his films at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and his films were acquired for the permanent collection of the Museum, in both print and original format.