Post-Classical Hollywood - by Barry Langford (Paperback)

About the Book

Barry Langford explains and interrogates the concept of 'post-classical' Hollywood cinema - its coherence, its historical justification and how it can help or hinder our understanding of Hollywood from the forties to the present.

Book Synopsis

At the end of World War II, Hollywood basked in unprecedented prosperity. Since then, numerous challenges and crises have changed the American film industry in ways beyond imagination in 1945. Nonetheless, at the start of a new century Hollywood's worldwide dominance is intact - indeed, in today's global economy the products of the American entertainment industry (of which movies are now only one part) are more ubiquitous than ever.How does today's 'Hollywood' - absorbed into transnational media conglomerates like NewsCorp., Sony, and Viacom - differ from the legendary studios of Hollywood's Golden Age? What are the dominant frameworks and conventions, the historical contexts and the governing attitudes through which films are made, marketed and consumed today? How have these changed across the last seven decades? And how have these evolving contexts helped shape the form, the style and the content of Hollywood movies, from Singin' in the Rain to Pirates of the Caribbean?Barry Langford explains and interrogates the concept of 'post-classical' Hollywood cinema - its coherence, its historical justification and how it can help or hinder our understanding of Hollywood from the forties to the present. Integrating film history, discussion of movies' social and political dimensions, and analysis of Hollywood's distinctive methods of storytelling, Post-Classical Hollywood charts key critical debates alongside the histories they interpret, while offering its own account of the 'post-classical'. Wide-ranging yet concise, challenging and insightful, Post-Classical Hollywood offers a new perspective on the most enduringly fascinating artform of our age.

From the Back Cover

At the end of World War II, Hollywood basked in unprecedented prosperity. Since then, numerous challenges and crises have changed the American film industry in ways beyond imagination in 1945. Nonetheless, at the start of a new century Hollywood's worldwide dominance is intact - indeed, in today's global economy the products of the American entertainment industry (of which movies are now only one part) are more ubiquitous than ever.

How does today's 'Hollywood' - absorbed into transnational media conglomerates like NewsCorp., Sony, and Viacom - differ from the legendary studios of Hollywood's Golden Age? What are the dominant frameworks and conventions, the historical contexts and the governing attitudes through which films are made, marketed and consumed today? How have these changed across the last seven decades? And how have these evolving contexts helped shape the form, the style and the content of Hollywood movies, from Singin' in the Rain to Pirates of the Caribbean?

Barry Langford explains and interrogates the concept of 'post-classical' Hollywood cinema - its coherence, its historical justification and how it can help or hinder our understanding of Hollywood from the forties to the present. Integrating film history, discussion of movies' social and political dimensions, and analysis of Hollywood's distinctive methods of storytelling, Post-Classical Hollywood charts key critical debates alongside the histories they interpret, while offering its own account of the 'post-classical'. Wide-ranging yet concise, challenging and insightful, Post-Classical Hollywood offers a new perspective on the most enduringly fascinating artform of our age.

Review Quotes

The book's strengths are real strengths: a good deal of original research, smart writing, and interpretative originality that increases as the book progresses. Highly recommended.--S. C. Dillon, Bates College "Choice"

Langford's study is both comprehensive and detailed, always keeping the different levels of analysis distinct, while allowing them to inform each other and broaden our understanding of the permutations of Hollywood after 1945.--Steen Christiansen, Aalborg University, Denmark "SCOPE: An Online Journal of Film Studies"

About the Author

Barry Langford is Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of Film Genre: Hollywood and Beyond (Edinburgh University Press, 2005) and Teaching Holocaust Literature and Film (with Robert Eaglestone, Palgrave Macmillan 2007), and has published on a wide variety of subjects in film and media studies and critical theory, including Holocaust film, Chris Marker's politics, revisionist Westerns, exilic identity in European city films, narrative temporalities in The Lord of the Rings, and British television situation comedy. His original short screenplay Torte Bluma was filmed in 2005 and premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival, going on to win awards at international festivals.