The Cultures of American Film integrates a number of approaches to the study of movies. Its chronological organization provides a historical overview, a survey of films across the decades from cinema's invention to the present. Its analytical approach addresses form and content: how films workand how we respond to them. By putting films in their cultural contexts, it examines how films fit into our lives and their own: that is, the life of film itself; the technologies that made them possible; the studios in which they were made; the filmmakers' struggles with politics and censorship.The Cultures of American Film covers movements, directions and directors, genres, the structures of films and their audiences.American film and its audience engage in a process of ongoing negotiation: will a film gain an audience? What kind of audience? A broad one, consisting of ages 18-46, the demographic most desired? Will the film have "legs," bringing in more viewers by word of mouth and repeat viewers? Will a film bemade for a smaller audience, made with a small budget and perhaps attempting to experiment somewhat with form and content? What do you as a viewer expect from a film? Do you want simple entertainment, an escape from the everyday? Do you want a film to engage in complex emotions or even ideas? Whatsatisfies you most when you see a film? Do you respond most to acting and the presence of stars? Do you like digital spectacle with superheroes? Do you prefer more intimate dramas or films with sex and violence?All of this and more make up the cultures of American film. Production and reception (that's you, the viewer, responding to a film), the history of events surrounding and sometimes absorbed by a film, the ways in which film speaks to us and we to it constitute a constellation of events andinteractions that we will examine in the course of this book. In chronological order, we will analyze the ways in which films work as part of the cultures of their own making as well as the larger structures of their society. We will make general observations and close analyses of particular films,talk about how and why films are made, and investigate the kinds of responses that they require and desire. Included at the end of each chapter are suggestions for further reading and suggestions for further critical analysis of the issues presented in the chapter. The aim, finally, is not to beinclusive but rather an attempt to discover connections, interactions, even surprises when film, its makers, its audience, and the culture they are part of interact.

American Cinema/American Culture looks at the interplay between American cinema and mass culture from the 1890s to 2011. It begins with an examination of the basic narrative and stylistic features of classical Hollywood cinema. It then studies the genres of silent melodrama, the musical, American comedy, the war/combat film, film noir, the western, and the horror and science fiction film, investigating the way in which movies shape and are shaped by the larger cultural concerns of the nation as a whole. The book concludes with a discussion of post World War II Hollywood, giving separate chapter coverage to the effects of the Cold War, 3D, television, the counterculture of the 1960s, directors from the film school generation, and the cultural concerns of Hollywood from the 1970s through 2011. Ideal for Introduction to American Cinema courses, American Film History courses, and Introductory Film Appreciation courses, this text provides a cultural overview of the phenomenon of the American movie-going experience. An updated study guide is also available for American Cinema/American Culture. Written by Ed Sikov, this guide introduces each topic with an explanatory overview written in more informal language, suggests screenings and readings, and offers self-tests.

This book uses the long and profitable career of Cecil B. DeMille to track the evolution of Classical Hollywood and its influence on emerging mass commercial culture in the US. DeMille’s success rested on how well his films presumed a broad consensus in the American public—expressed through consumer hedonism, faith, and an “exceptional” national history—which merged seamlessly with the efficient production methods developed by the largest integrated studios. DeMille’s sudden mid-career shift away from spectator perversity to corporate propagandist permanently tarnished the director’s historical standing among scholars, yet should not overshadow the profound links between his success and the rise and fall of mid-century mass culture.

Film Music in the Sound Era: A Research and Information Guide offers a comprehensive bibliography of scholarship on music in sound film (1927–2017). Thematically organized sections cover historical studies, studies of musicians and filmmakers, genre studies, theory and aesthetics, and other key aspects of film music studies. Broad coverage of works from around the globe, paired with robust indexes and thorough cross-referencing, make this research guide an invaluable tool for all scholars and students investigating the intersection of music and film. This guide is published in two volumes: Volume 1: Histories, Theories, and Genres covers overviews, historical surveys, theory and criticism, studies of film genres, and case studies of individual films. Volume 2: People, Cultures, and Contexts covers individual people, social and cultural studies, studies of musical genre, pedagogy, and the industry. A complete index is included in each volume.

What are the components of youth cultures today? This encyclopedia examines the facets of youth cultures and brings them to the forefront. Although issues of youth culture are frequently cited in classrooms and public forums, most encyclopedias of childhood and youth are devoted to history, human development, and society. A limitation on the reference bookshelf is the restriction of youth to pre-adolescence, although issues of youth continue into young adulthood. This encyclopedia addresses an academic audience of professors and students in childhood studies, American studies, and culture studies. The authors span disciplines of psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, and folklore. The Encyclopedia of Youth Cultures in America addresses a need for historical, social, and cultural information on a wide array of youth groups. Such a reference work serves as a corrective to the narrow public view that young people are part of an amalgamated youth group or occupy malicious gangs and satanic cults. Widespread reports of bullying, school violence, dominance of athletics over academics, and changing demographics in the United States has drawn renewed attention to the changing cultural landscape of youth in and out of school to explain social and psychological problems.

Peter Decherney explores how the concerns of intellectuals and the needs of Hollywood studio heads led to the development of a mutually beneficial relationship during Hollywood's Golden Age (1915-1960). During this period, museums, universities, and government agencies used films to maintain their position as quintessential American institutions, transforming movies into an art form and making moviegoing a vital civic institution. Decherney's history features an intriguing cast of characters, including the poet Vachel Lindsay, film producers Adolph Zukor and Joseph Kennedy, Hollywood flak Will Hays, and philanthropist Nelson Rockefeller. He shows how Columbia and Harvard started film studies programs in the 1910s and 1920s to remake American education and American culture. And he shows how the Museum of Modern Art, the U.S. Office of War Information, and the National Endowment for the Arts worked with Hollywood to fight fascism and communism and to promote American values abroad. Hollywood and the Culture Elite offers a unique glimpse into the collaboration between Hollywood and the stewards of high culture to ensure their own survival and profitability.

The Cold War was not only about the imperial ambitions of the super powers, their military strategies, and antagonistic ideologies. It was also about conflicting worldviews and their correlates in the daily life of the societies involved. The term "Cold War Culture" is often used in a broad sense to describe media influences, social practices, and symbolic representations as they shape, and are shaped by, international relations. Yet, it remains in question whether -- or to what extent -- the Cold War Culture model can be applied to European societies, both in the East and the West. While every European country had to adapt to the constraints imposed by the Cold War, individual development was affected by specific conditions as detailed in these chapters. This volume offers an important contribution to the international debate on this issue of the Cold War impact on everyday life by providing a better understanding of its history and legacy in Eastern and Western Europe.