Film criticism, the Cold War, and the blacklist : reading the Hollywood Reds / / Jeff Smith

• Autore: Smith Jeff <1962 December 17->
• Pubblicazione: Berkeley, California : , : University of California Press, , 2014; ©2014
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (365 p.)
• Disciplina: 791.43/6582825
• Soggetto topico: Motion pictures - Political aspects - United States; Motion pictures - United States - History - 20th century; Cold War in motion pictures; Communism and motion pictures - United States; Blacklisting of entertainers - United States - History - 20th century
• Soggetto non controllato: 20th century american culture; 20th century american history; allegory; american entertainment culture; american films; anti communist propaganda; cold war; communism; critical lens; entertainment blacklist; film and television; film criticism; film history; historical films; hollywood blacklist; hollywood; house committee on un american activities; huac; literary allegory; movie studies; police procedures; political; politics; postwar period; propaganda films; propaganda; science fiction films; villains; westerns
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: What More Can Be Said about the Hollywood Blacklist? -- 1. A Bifocal View of Hollywood during the Blacklist Period: Film as Propaganda and Allegory -- 2. I Was a Communist for RKO: Hollywood Anti-Communism and the Problem of Representing Political Beliefs -- 3. Reds and Blacks: Representing Race in Anti-Communist Films -- 4. Stoolies, Cheese-Eaters, and Tie Sellers: Genre, Allegory, and the HUAC Informer -- 5. The Cross and the Sickle: Allegorical Representations of the Blacklist in Historical Films -- 6. Roaming the Plains along the "New Frontier": The Western as Allegory of the Blacklist and the Cold War -- 7. Loving the Alien: Science Fiction Cinema as Cold War Allegory -- Conclusion: Old Wounds and the Texas Sharpshooter -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: Film Criticism, the Cold War, and the Blacklist examines the long-term reception of several key American films released during the postwar period, focusing on the two main critical lenses used in the interpretation of these films: propaganda and allegory. Produced in response to the hearings held by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) that resulted in the Hollywood blacklist, these films' ideological message and rhetorical effectiveness was often muddled by the inherent difficulties in dramatizing villains defined by their thoughts and belief systems rather than their actions. Whereas anti-Communist propaganda films offered explicit political exhortation, allegory was the preferred vehicle for veiled or hidden political comment in many police procedurals, historical films, Westerns, and science fiction films. Jeff Smith examines the way that particular heuristics, such as the mental availability of exemplars and the effects of framing, have encouraged critics to match filmic elements to contemporaneous historical events, persons, and policies. In charting the development of these particular readings, Film Criticism, the Cold War, and the Blacklist features case studies of many canonical Cold War titles, including The Red Menace, On the Waterfront, The Robe, High Noon, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
• Titolo autorizzato: Film criticism, the Cold War, and the blacklist
• ISBN: 0-520-28068-7; 0-520-95851-9
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910816881103321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II