The American city in the cinema
By: James A. Clapp
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 2013
Place of publication: New Brunswick, New Jersey
Language: eng
Number of pages: 353
ISBN-13: 9781412851480
Subjects: Motion pictures; City and town life in motion pictures; Cities and towns in motion pictures; History and criticism
Description: The American city and the American movie industry grew up together in the early decades of the twentieth century, making film an ideal medium through which to better understand urban life. Exploiting the increasing popularity of large metropolitan cities and urban lifestyle, movies chronicled the city and the stories it generated. In this volume, urbanist James A. Clapp explores the reciprocal relationship between the city and the cinema within the dimensions of time and space. A variety of themes and actualizations have been repeated throughout the history of the cinema, including the roles of immigrants, women, small towns, family farms, and suburbia; and urban childhoods, family values, violent crime, politics, and dystopic futures. Clapp examines the different ways in which the city has been characterized as well as how it has been portrayed as a "character" itself. Some of the films discussed include Metropolis, King Kong, West Side Story, It's a Wonderful Life, American Beauty, Rebel without a Cause, American Graffiti, Blade Runner, Gangs of New York, The Untouchables, LA Confidential, Sunrise, Crash, American History X, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Deer Hunter, and many more. This work will be enjoyed by urban specialists, moviegoers, and those interested in American, cultural, and film studies.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-310) and index.
Table of contents: title: Preface; title: The American city in the cinema: an introduction; title: An urban medium; title: Immigrants, the city, and the cinema; title: Small towns in a metropolitan world; title: How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm?; title: Suburbia and the American dream; title: Growing up urban; title: Family values, city ways; title: Politics, on-screen and off; title: Mean streets and cities of night; title: Are you talking to me? New York and the cinema of urban alienation; title: Class, race and ethnicity in the city and cinema; title: The urban woman: labor, liberation and love in the cinematic city; title: City work; title: Nature, technophobia and the cinema of the urban future; title: The city as cinema.