American Cinema American Culture

Ideal for Introduction to American Cinema courses, American Film History courses, and Introductory Film Appreciation courses focused on American Film, this text offers a cultural examination of the American movie-making industry, with particular attention paid to the economic and aesthetic institution of Hollywood. Reflects a cultural history of American film, focusing primarily on topics and issues rather than on what happened when|Presents basic concepts in such a way as to encourage discussion, not so much of individual films but of films in general|Successfully applies the methods and discoveries of "The New Film History" to an introductory level text surveying American cinema (more on this in Preface) |Detailed discussion of six genres (Melodrama, Comedy, the Musical, the War Film, Film Noir, and the Western), focusing on the point at which each had the greatest impact on the industry, film aesthetics, and the broader American culture|Full chapter on "The Musical," spanning its history in film and cultural significance|New analysis of David LynchĹźs Mulholland Dr. in Chapter 2, replacing that of Goodfellas|Expanded coverage of "The Studio System" in Chapter 4 and of "The Star System" in Chapter 5, including a new case study of Tom Hanks' career|Expanded coverage of the contemporary war film to include Gulf War films and an extensive comparison of Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line.|Extensive updating in the final chapter to reflect the changes in the film industry since publication of first edition|The Western chapter has a more extensive discussion of Unforgiven, which is compared to Jim JarmuschĹźs Dead Man.|Film School Generation has the updated work of Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee.|A new companion Online Learning Center that includes chapter quizzes, a glossary of key terms, links to other useful sites, and more|Revised version of the Faculty Guide is available on the Instructor side of the Online Learning Center.