Hollywood Cinema

This comprehensive introduction to Hollywood cinema provides a fascinating account of the world′s most powerful film industry and examines its cultural and aesthetic significance. Taking a wide–ranging approach, and spotlighting such films as A Star is Born, Singing in the Rain, Forrest Gump, and Titanic, it explores and interprets Hollywood cinema in history and in the present, in theory and in practice.

For this new edition, the book has been extensively revised, with the historical material updated, and including references to Hollywood movies after 1990. New features include box sections, further reading lists, and chapter summaries. Well illustrated and clearly written, this is an indispensable text for students and readers of Hollywood history and culture.

Preface.

Acknowledgments.

List of Figures.

List of Box Sections.

Introduction: Taking Hollywood Seriously.

1. Metropolis of Make–Believe :.

Art and Business.

The Commercial Aesthetics of Titanic.

A Classical Cinema?.

Hollywood and Its Audiences.

Ratings and Franchises.

Hollywood s World.

Summary.

Notes for Further Reading.

2. Entertainment 1:.

Escape.

Money on the Screen.

The Multiple Logics of Hollywood Cinema.

Summary.

Notes for Further Reading.

3. Entertainment 2:.

The Play of Emotions.

Regulated Difference.

Singin in the Rain: How to Take Gene Kelly Seriously.

Summary.

Notes for Further Reading.

4. Genre:.

Introduction.

Genre Criticism.

Genre Recognition.

The Empires of Genres: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

Genre and Gender.

Summary.

Further Reading.

5. Industry:.

Introduction.

Distribution and Exhibition.

Exporting America.

Divorcement.

The Studio System.

The Star System.

How Stars are Made: A Star Is Born (1937).

Summary.

Further Reading.

6. Industry 1948–1980:.

Introduction.

The Effects of Divorcement.

Roadshows and Teenpix.

Independents, Agents, and Television.

Corporate Consolidation and the New Hollywood .

Ratings.

Hollywood in the Multiplex.

Summary.

Further Reading.

7. Industry Since 1980:.

Introduction.

Video and New Markets.

The Pursuit of Synergy.

Globalization.

Independence.

Summary.

Further Reading.

8. Technology:.

Introduction.

Realism and the Myth of Total Cinema.

Sound.

Sunny Side Up.

Color.

Widescreen.

Technology and Power.

The Triumph of the Digital.

Summary.

Further Reading.

9. Politics:.

Introduction.

The Politics of Regulation.

Hollywood Goes to Washington.

Washington Goes to Hollywood.

Representing the Political Machine.

Controversy with Class: The Social Problem Movie.

Ideology.

Summary.

Further Reading.

10. Space 1:.

Introduction.

The Best View.

Making the Picture Speak: Representation and Expression.

The Optics of Expressive Space.

Deep Space: Three–Dimensionality on a Flat Screen.

Mise–en–scéne.

Editing.

Summary.

Further Reading.

11. Space 2:.

The Three Looks of Cinema.

Points of View.

Safe and Unsafe Space.

Ordinary People.

Summary.

Further Reading.

12. Performance 1:.

Introduction.

The Spectacle of Movement.

The Movement of Narrative.

Acting as Impersonation.

The Actor s Two Bodies.

Star Performance.

Summary.

Further Reading.

13. Performance 2:.

The Method.

Acting as a Signifying System.

Valentino.

The Son of the Sheik (1926).

Summary.

Further Reading.

14. Time:.

Introduction.

Time Out.

Film Time.

Movie Time.

Deadlines and Coincidences: Madigan (1968).

Mise–en–temps.

Tense.

Back to the Present: History as a Production Value.

The Politics of History: Forrest Gump (1994).

The Lessons of History: Juárez (1939).

Summary.

Further Reading.

15. Narrative:.

Narrative and Other Pleasures.

Show and Tell.

Theories of Narration.

Plot, Story, Narration.

Clarity: Transparency and Motivation.

Summary.

Further Reading.

16. Narrative 2:.

Regulating Meaning: The Production Code.

Clarity and Ambiguity in Casablanca.

Narrative Pressure.

Summary.

Further Reading.

17. Criticism:.

Introduction.

From Reviewing to Criticism.

Early Theory and Criticism in America.

From Criticism to Theory.

Criticism in Practice: Only Angels Have Wings.

Summary.

Further Reading.

18. Theories:.

Entering the Academy.

Structuralism and Semiology.

Cinema, Ideology, Apparatus.

Psychoanalysis and Cinema.

The Spectator.

Feminist Theory.

Neoformalism and Cognitivism.

From Reception to History.

Summary.

Further Reading.

19. Chronology:.

Glossary.

Appendices.

The Motion Picture Production Code.

The Code and Rating System, 1968.

The Classification and Ratings System: What the Ratings Mean .

Consolidated Notes.

Select Bibliography.

Index.

Richard Maltby is Professor of Screen Studies and Head of the School of Humanities at Flinders University. At the University of Exeter he established the Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture. He is the author of Harmless Entertainment: Hollywood and the Ideology of Consensus (1983), and editor of Identifying Hollywood′s Audiences: Cultural Identity and the Movies (with Melvyn Stokes, 1999) and Hollywood Spectatorship: Changing Perceptions of Cinema Audiences (2001).

" Hollywood Cinema is an important book, one to be included in any consideration of American film and its influence in world cinema." Journal of Film and Video

This updated and enhanced edition of Richard Maltby′s Hollywood Cinema is quite simply the best single textbook on the subject. In clear, user–friendly fashion, Maltby provides an astonishing amount of basic information about Hollywood while explaining how both the movies and the critical/theoretical discourse of film study have evolved over time. The book is not only an extremely useful overview but also an important intervention in current debates. An intelligent blending of formal and historical analysis, it should become essential reading for every serious student of film, whether beginner or advanced. James Naremore, Indiana University

"In its first edition, Hollywood Cinema quickly became a must–have volume for anyone interested in film. Beautifully reorganized, expanded, and updated with features that enhance its usefulness for research and teaching, this revised edition shows how truly indispensable Maltby s work on Hollywood is to media studies." Barbara Klinger, Indiana University