Overview

From the American underground film to the blockbuster superhero, this authoritative collection of introductory and specialized readings explores the core issues and developments in American cinematic history during the second half of the twentieth-century through the present day. Considers essential subjects that have shaped the American film industry—from the impact of television and CGI to the rise of independent and underground film; from the impact of the civil rights, feminist and LGBT movements to that of 9/11. Features a student-friendly structure dividing coverage into the periods 1960-1975, 1976-1990, and 1991 to the present day, each of which opens with an historical overview Brings together a rich and varied selection of contributions by established film scholars, combining broad historical, social, and political contexts with detailed analysis of individual films, including Midnight Cowboy, Nashville, Cat Ballou, Chicago, Back to the Future, Killer of Sheep, Daughters of the Dust, Nothing But a Man, Ali, Easy Rider, The Conversation, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Longtime Companion, The Matrix, The War Tapes, the Batman films, and selected avant-garde and documentary films, among many others. Additional online resources, such as sample syllabi, which include suggested readings and filmographies, for both general and specialized courses, will be available online. May be used alongside American Film History: Selected Readings, Origins to 1960 to provide an authoritative study of American cinema from its earliest days through the new millennium

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9781118475126

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Reviews

A superior balancing of the layers of U.S. cultural history, the complex contours of the American film industry, and analysis of specific movies. Featuring a range of top-notch scholars and historians, this excellent collection counterpoints the usual long-shot perspective of most film histories with close-up investigations of key issues and practices. Ideal for any serious course in American cinema histories. Timothy Corrigan, University of Pennsylvania We encounter fresh perspectives on some extraordinary movies and the people behind them. An admirable contribution to the vital task of understanding the last fifty years of American film history. Julian Stringer, University of Nottingham American Film History is a landmark achievement. The editors have expertly assembled an unprecedented array of estimable film scholars to produce a uniquely comprehensive, critical, lively and diversitarian history of American film since the 1960s. It is certain to be an indispensable resource for all serious students of the cinema. Jerome Christensen, University of California, Irvine

Author Information

Together, Cindy Lucia, Roy Grundmann, and Art Simon are the editors of the four volume reference work, The Wiley-Blackwell History of American Film (2012), of this volume and its companion, American Film History: Selected Readings, Origins to 1960 ( both 2016), all published by Wiley-Blackwell. Cynthia Lucia is Professor of English and Director of Film and Media Studies at Rider University. She is author of Framing Female Lawyers: Women on Trial in Film (2005) and writes for Cineaste film magazine, where she has served on the editorial board for more than two decades. Her most recent research includes essays that appear in A Companion to Woody Allen (Wiley, 2013), Modern British Drama on Screen (2014), and Law, Culture and Visual Studies (2014). Roy Grundmann is Associate Professor of Film Studies at Boston University. He is the author of Andy Warhol's Blow Job (2003) and the editor of A Companion to Michael Haneke (Wiley 2010). He is Contributing Editor of Cineaste and has published essays in a range of prestigious anthologies and journals, including GLQ, Cineaste, Continuum, The Velvet Light Trap, and Millennium Film Journal. He has curated retrospectives on Michael Haneke, Andy Warhol, and Matthias Müller. Art Simon is Professor of Film Studies at Montclair State University. He is the author of Dangerous Knowledge: The JFK Assassination in Art and Film (2nd edition, 2013). He has curated two film exhibitions for the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York City and his work has been published in the edited collection ""Un-American"" Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era (2007) and in the journal American Jewish History.

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