Film Criticism, the Cold War, and the Blacklist examines the long-term reception of several key American films released during the postwar period, focusing on the two main critical lenses used in the interpretation of these films: propaganda and allegory. Produced in response to the hearings held by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) that resulted in the Hollywood blacklist, these films' ideological message and rhetorical effectiveness was often muddled by the inherent difficulties in dramatizing villains defined by their thoughts and belief systems rather than their actions. Whereas anti-Communist propaganda films offered explicit political exhortation, allegory was the preferred vehicle for veiled or hidden political comment in many police procedurals, historical films, Westerns, and science fiction films. Jeff Smith examines the way that particular heuristics, such as the mental availability of exemplars and the effects of framing, have encouraged critics to match filmic elements to contemporaneous historical events, persons, and policies. In charting the development of these particular readings, Film Criticism, the Cold War, and the Blacklist features case studies of many canonical Cold War titles, including The Red Menace, On the Waterfront, The Robe, High Noon, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Les mer
List of Illustrations List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction: What More Can Be Said about the Hollywood Blacklist? 1. A Bifocal View of Hollywood during the Blacklist Period: Film as Propaganda and Allegory 2. I Was a Communist for RKO: Hollywood Anti-Communism and the Problem of Representing Political Beliefs 3. Reds and Blacks: Representing Race in Anti-Communist Films 4. Stoolies, Cheese-Eaters, and Tie Sellers: Genre, Allegory, and the HUAC Informer 5. The Cross and the Sickle: Allegorical Representations of the Blacklist in Historical Films 6. Roaming the Plains along the "New Frontier": The Western as Allegory of the Blacklist and the Cold War 7. Loving the Alien: Science Fiction Cinema as Cold War Allegory Conclusion: Old Wounds and the Texas Sharpshooter Notes Bibliography Index
Les mer
"[A] fresh view, if not always of the films, then of the way critics and scholars have shaped discussions over time." The Arts Fuse "Smith is in his element when unearthing subtext ... His readings have a richness of their own." -- Bernard F. Dick American Studies "Excellent... comprehensive." Journal of American Culture
Les mer

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780520280687
Publisert
2014-03-26
Utgiver
Vendor
University of California Press
Vekt
499 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Dybde
25 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet

Forfatter

Biographical note

Jeff Smith is Professor of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and the author of The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music.