You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Explores contemporary American films that challenge official history. Our movies have started talking back to us, and Film Nation takes a close look at what they have to say. In movies like JFK and Forrest Gump, Robert Burgoyne sees a filmic extension of the debates that exercise us as a nation -- debates about race and culture and national identity, about the nature and makeup of American history. In analyses of five films that challenge the traditional myths of the nation-state -- Glory, Thunderheart, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, and Forrest Gump -- Burgoyne explores the reshaping of our collective imaginary in relation to our history. These movies, exploring the meaning of "nation" fr...
Takes you on a cinematic journey through the controversial portrayal of history on film - from the swashbuckling epics of the silent era to up-to-the-minute dramas like World Trade Center. With thought-provoking analysis, this work examines the power of historic films to entertain and promote national myths while influencing public opinion.
A look at how post-9/11 cinema captures the new face of war in the twenty-first century While the war film has carved out a prominent space within the history of cinema, the twenty-first century has seen a significant shift in the characteristics that define it. Serving as a roadmap to the genre’s contemporary modes of expression, The New American War Film explores how, in the wake of 9/11, both the nature of military conflict and the symbolic frameworks that surround it have been dramatically reshaped. Featuring in-depth analyses of contemporary films like The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, Eye in the Sky, American Sniper, and others, The New American War Film details the genre’s turn a...
Robert Burgoyne uses historical analysis to elucidate a range of historical arguments and interprestations in Bertolucci's 1900. His central proposition that the narrative patterning in all historical films vests them with the power of historical explanation provides a basis for understanding the genre of historical film.
War has had a powerful impact on the film industry, while at the same time motion pictures can influence wartime behaviour & shape our perception of the historical record. This book collects essays that use a variety of critical approaches to explore this film genre.
First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
The chapters in Memory, History, Nation, written by international scholars, offer a complex awareness of the workings of memory, and the ways in which different or changing histories may be explained. They explore the relation between individual and social memory, between real and imaginary, event and fantasy, history and myth. Contradictory accounts, or memories in direct contradiction to the historical record are not always the sign of a repressive authority attempting to cover something up. The tension between memory as a safeguard against attempts to silence dissenting voices, and memorys own implication in that silencing, runs throughout the book.