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Postmodern Hollywood What's New in Film and Why It Makes Us Feel So Strange
M. Keith Booker
Book Code: C9900
ISBN: 0-275-99900-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-99900-1
240 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 7/30/2007
List Price: $49.95 (UK Sterling Price: £27.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • The prolific Booker contributes a valuable cultural critique of postmodernism in contemporary film. Building on the theory of Fredric Jameson, the author addresses such postmodern manifestations as the nostalgic use of music, fragmentation, hyperlink editing, and pastiche. Perhaps his most important contribution is his examination of individual postmodern filmmakers: Tim Burton, David Cronenberg, Joel and Ethan Coen, Brian De Palma, Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, et al. Transforming the notion of the auteur, Booker demonstrates how these filmmakers are not necessarily visionary singular artists but directors who know how to borrow from the past in creative and, at times, unnerving ways. Postmodernism challenges the traditional notion of creativity in film production. Booker's discussion of the relationship between late capitalism and postmodern filmmaking introduces intriguing new questions about cinematic challenges to hegemony and ideology.... this volume is absolutely necessary for those interested in contemporary film. The passages on such individual postmodern films as Requiem for a Dream and The Man Who Wasn't There will inform and structure undergraduate research papers for a generation. Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.
    —Choice     February 2008
  • Endorsement From David Seed
    Chair of American Literature
    Liverpool University:     Postmodern Hollywood skillfully combines discussions of cinematic style and technique with investigations of more traditional substances--like plot and character--and thus offers an informative survey of recent and contemporary films. M. Keith Booker's attention to topics like pastiche and nostalgia make postmodernism accessible to all. The volume gives new insights into every film it discusses and makes an important contribution to criticism on the modern cinema.
  • Endorsement From Dan Georgakas,
    Cineaste:     M. Keith Booker puts postmodern Hollywood fare into engaging political and aesthetic contexts. He covers a plethora of fascinating films with considerable verve and authority, and his highly readable style is blessedly free of both academic jargon and show biz hype.
Description: Discussions of the phenomenon of postmodernism have established certain characteristics that are typical of postmodernist culture. These characteristics include formal fragmentation, a tendency toward a particular kind of nostalgia, and the use of materials and styles borrowed from previous films and other cultural products. This volume presents a brief summary of the characteristics that have typically been associated with postmodernism, especially as they pertain to film. It illustrates those characteristics with discussions of a wide variety of American films of the past thirty years, noting how those films participate in the phenomenon of postmodernism. Emphasis is on popular, commercial films, rather than the more esoteric, experimental products that have sometimes been associated with postmodern film. Booker's work contains detailed discussions of a wide variety of American films -- including classics like Sullivan's Travels and The Last Picture Show, and recent successes such as Scream, Natural Born Killers, Memento, Moulin Rouge, and Fight Club -- noting how these films participate in the phenomenon of postmodernism, and how they have helped to shape its current form.
LC Card Number: 2007023400
LCC Class: PN1995
Dewey Class: 791
PDF Catalogs:
Pop Culture Spring 2008.pdf
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