This book represents the most comprehensive critical analysis of the big picture in Hollywood with respect to how those whocontrol the institution gained and have maintained that control for its 100-year history. The book traces the evolution and development of specific tactics and strategies implemented by the upper level management of that controlling handful of major studio/distributors and explains the relationship between control of the financial side of the film business and the creative side. One important aspect of that control arises from the use of unfair, unethical, unconscionable, anti-competitive, predatory and illegal provisions in the distribution deal between film distributors and producers.

Beginning with Thomas Edison's aggressive copyright disputes and concluding with recent lawsuits against YouTube, Hollywood's Copyright Wars follows the struggle of the film, television, and digital media industries to influence and adapt to copyright law. Though much of Hollywood's engagement with the law occurs offstage, in the larger theater of copyright, many of Hollywood's most valued treasures, from Modern Times (1936) to Star Wars (1977), cannot be fully understood without appreciating their legal controversies. Peter Decherney shows that the history of intellectual property in Hollywood has not always mirrored the evolution of the law and recounts these extralegal solutions and their impact on American media and culture.

Cinema Wars explores the intersection of film, politics, and US culture and society through a bold critical analysis of the films, TV shows, and documentaries produced in the early 2000s Offers a thought-provoking depiction of Hollywood film as a contested terrain between conservative and liberal forces Films and documentaries discussed include: Black Hawk Down, The Dark Knight, Star Wars, Syriana, WALL-E, Fahrenheit 9/11 and other Michael Moore documentaries, amongst others Explores how some films in this era supported the Bush-Cheney regime, while others criticized the administration, openly or otherwise Investigates Hollywood’s treatment of a range of hot topics, from terrorism and environmental crisis to the Iraq war and the culture wars of the 2000s Shows how Hollywood film in the 2000s brought to life a vibrant array of social protest and helped create cultural conditions to elect Barack Obama

'War Cinema' presents an introduction to and overview of films that take war as their main theme. Framing the era with 'Apocalypse Now' and 'Apocalypse Now Redux', the author initially focuses on Vietnam on film in the 1970s and 1980s and how this divisive war was represented.

The little-explored story of how politics, propaganda, and profits were combined to create the drama, imagery and fantasy that was American film during World War II. 32 black-and-white photographs.

Is the cinema, as writers from David Denby to Susan Sontag have claimed, really dead? Contrary to what we have been led to believe, films are better than ever—we just can't see the good ones. Movie Wars cogently explains how movies are packaged, distributed, and promoted, and how, at every stage of the process, the potential moviegoer is treated with contempt. Using examples ranging from the New York Times's coverage of the Cannes film festival to the anticommercial practices of Orson Welles, Movie Wars details the workings of the powerful forces that are in the process of ruining our precious cinematic culture and heritage, and the counterforces that have begun to fight back.

The story of the battle to form the Screen Writers’ Guild is for the first time told fully and in riveting detail, based on diaries, letters, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, and hundreds of interviews with Hollywood people. Brilliantly recreated is the political turmoil that shattered the Hollywood community through the 1930’s and into the 40’s— leading to House Un-American Activity Committee and the blacklist. “Hollywood of that era has a narcotic fascination for many of us. The book is crammed with compelling movieland figures. The riches Nancy Lynn Schwartz unearthed deserved our attention.” —J. Anthony Lukas, The New York Times Book Review