The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film

Ever since Douglas Fairbanks let a sword do his talking in the swashbuckling films of the silent era, the action and adventure genre has evolved into one of the most enduring box–office draws in cinematic history. The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film presents a comprehensive overview and analysis of the history, myriad themes, and critical approaches to the action and adventure genre in American cinema.

The book explores the genre s amazing longevity, one that stretches from the silent spectacles to the iconic superheroes of 21st–century action films. Case studies reveal the genre s diverse roots from westerns and war films, to crime and espionage movies and show how action and adventure represent pervasive modes of movie–making and storytelling throughout American cinema s lengthy history. By contrasting family movies such as The Adventures of Robin Hood with the breakneck–pacing of thrillers like The Bourne Identity, it illustrates just how extensive this popular American genre cinema can be. Chapters draw out a rich variety of aesthetic strategies and thematic concerns that have come to define the genre, touching on themes such as the outsider hero, violence and redemption, and adventure as escape from the mundane. The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film offers a timely and richly revealing portrait of a powerful cinematic genre that has increasingly come to dominate the American cinematic landscape.

Yvonne Tasker is Professor of Film and Media at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema (1993) and Soldiers Stories: Military Women in Cinema and Television Since WWII (2011), and editor of Action and Adventure Cinema (2004).