Steven Spielberg's America E-Book

Frederick Wasser

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: PALS-Polity America Through the Lens series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 331

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Steven Spielberg is known as the most powerful man in New Hollywood and a pioneer of the contemporary blockbuster, America’s most successful export. His career began a new chapter in mass culture. At the same time, American post war liberalism was breaking down. This fascinating new book explains the complex relationship between film and politics through the prism of an iconic filmmaker.

Spielberg’s early films were a triumphant emergence of the Sunbelt aesthetic that valued visceral kicks and basic emotions over the ambiguities of history. Such blockbusters have inspired much debate about their negative effect on politics and have been charged as being an expression of the corporatization of life. Here Frederick Wasser argues that the older Spielberg has not fully gone this way, suggesting that the filmmaker recycles the populist vision of older Hollywood because he sincerely believes in both big time moviemaking and liberal democracy. Nonetheless, his stories are burdened by his generation’s hostility to public life, and the book shows how he uses filmmaking tricks to keep his audience with him and to smooth over the ideological contradictions. His audiences have become more global, as his films engage history.

This fresh and provocative take on Spielberg in the context of globalization, rampant market capitalism and the hardening socio-political landscape of the United States will be fascinating reading for students of film and for anyone interested in contemporary America and its culture.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

America Through the Lens

Title page

Copyright page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION: CULTURE, POLITICS, FILM

1 THE FORMATION OF SPIELBERG’S GENERATION

Sunbelt Culture

The Family’s Influence

Television and Disney in the Suburbs

Social Changes and the American Film Industry

Auteurism and New Hollywood

Postwar Culture Fractures

2 SPIELBERG GETS HIS BREAK

Spielberg Gets a Job

Universal TV: Movies on Television

Searching for Balance After New Hollywood

The First Movie: Sugarland

On the Cusp of the Blockbuster

3 THE SHARK AND THE BLOCKBUSTER

Jaws Swims Away from the Disaster Cycle

A New Era

TV Marketing

An Alien World: Close Encounters

Strategies of the Contemporary Blockbuster

Influence of Film

Raiders and Classic Hollywood

The New Intensity

4 E.T. AND ALL THINGS PRIVATE

Steven Spielberg Is Now Spielberg

The Backlash

A Setback and a Disappointment

No More Action

The Pull of History: The Color Purple

Spielberg’s First Historical Film

5 LOOKING TO THE PAST

The Rise of the Hard Body

Spielberg Rejects the Hard Body

The Competition in Hollywood

The Year 1993

Return to Photorealism: Schindler’s List

Hiatus: Time to Think

The Development of Historical Style

6 THE HISTORICAL FILM

Critical Frame: Consensual Mythmaking and Social Engagement

The End of the Hiatus

Amistad and a Failure at Mythmaking

The Context of Saving Private Ryan

Encompassing the War: Saving Private Ryan

The Century Turns

Dystopia and Minority Report

7 SPIELBERG AND DARK VISIONS

Generous Fable: The Terminal

The Turn Towards The Digital Apocalypse

Spielberg’s Conflict: War of the Worlds and Munich

Atomized Popcorn: War of the Worlds

Neither True nor False: Munich

CODA: OPEN QUESTIONS

APPENDIX

WORKS CITED

Index

America Through the Lens

Martin Scorsese’s America – Ellis Cashmore

Steven Spielberg’s America – Frederick Wasser

Copyright © Frederick Wasser 2010

The right of Frederick Wasser to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2010 by Polity Press

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

350 Main Street

Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4082-2

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4083-9 (paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5827-8 (Multi-user ebook)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5828-5 (Single-user ebook)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.politybooks.com

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Although this is a relatively short work, its genesis was encouraged by the enduring good will of many people. Andrea Drugan was a great mentor and editor, and the Polity staff have been very supportive. My approach to the topics was developed through discussions with Al Auster, Jakob Diel, Gerd Hallenberger, Peter Krämer, Angela Krewani, Paul Lopes, William Megalos, various members of NECS, Stephen Ogumah, and Karen Ritzenhoff. Jason MacDonald was a tireless researcher and helped immeasurably. Ann Klefstad guided my thinking and language at various stages. Dana Polan gave a generous and thoughtful response to some writing problems. The librarians at The Margaret Herrick Library, University of Southern California, and Emerson College helped to track down my eccentric requests. I received tangible support from the Research Foundation of PSC/CUNY, the Provost of Brooklyn College, and the New Faculty Fund.

Nancy Berke provided essential intellectual support throughout the project.

The publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:

Page 3, 51, 68, 98, 134, 173, 177, 188 courtesy of Photofest; 44 © The Kobal Collection; 69, 201 courtesy of Herrick Library; 74 © Universal/ The Kobal Collection; 83 © Columbia/ The Kobal Collection; 106 © the United States National Archive; 140 © Tri-Star/ The Kobal Collection; 151 © Amblin/ Universal/ The Kobal Collection; 197 © Dreamworks/ The Kobal Collection; 209 © Dreamworks SKG/ Universal/ The Kobal Collection/ Ballard, Karen; 217 © Bettmann/ CORBIS.

INTRODUCTION: CULTURE, POLITICS, FILM

American democracy has endured crisis and change in the last three decades. The second chapter in the postwar history of pop culture (which begins with the 1970s crises) has played out in dystopic ways: the global spread of American culture has coincided with declining interest and trust in civic life and public action in the United States and elsewhere.

Culture and politics reflect and determine each other in a relationship that has become increasingly perplexing. Right after World War Two, there was relative harmony between politics and culture in the United States. Within twenty years, however, this harmony was challenged by the rise of rebellious youth cultures. The ensuing turmoil and fervor led to the political exhaustion of the mid-1970s, which complicated the cultural situation for the members of the rising generation. The following decades were marked by political reaction. In the cultural sphere the rebellious generation of the 1960s had created new styles in film, music, and other arts. As the political reaction of the mid-1970s took hold, rebellion was rejected. Another style was synthesized, which emphasized direct personal excitement and sidestepped political conflict.

A primary manifestation of this exciting style is the Hollywood blockbuster; a central figure in the scenario of blockbuster evolution is Steven Spielberg. A creator of the contemporary blockbuster, he has managed to continue making such films through the decades, as American society embraced marketplace values that have increasingly polarized its politics. His big-budget films have reflected American society through this dysfunctional evolution and lately, contrary to the spirit of the 1980s, his films became increasingly historical and thus more political. This book will survey Spielberg’s remarkable career as refracted through the prism of political shifts (both global and American) and as reflecting those shifts. The book has developed as an exercise in understanding the determining factors of Spielberg’s career. The reader should know, however, that the inspiration for the book’s title, Steven Spielberg’s America, is America more than it is Steven Spielberg.