Transfigurations violence, death and masculinity in American cinema
"Transfigurations: Violence, Death and Masculinity in American Cinema suggests a fundamental rethinking of the notion of violence in Hollywood cinema, and discloses the methodological and theoretical inadequacies of a series of common approaches to screen violence. More specifically, the book c...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Amsterdam
Amsterdam University Press
[2008]©2008, 2008
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| Series: | Film culture in transition
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| Collection: | JSTOR Open Access Books - Collection details see MPG.ReNa |
| Summary: | "Transfigurations: Violence, Death and Masculinity in American Cinema suggests a fundamental rethinking of the notion of violence in Hollywood cinema, and discloses the methodological and theoretical inadequacies of a series of common approaches to screen violence. More specifically, the book challenges the traditional understanding of the concept of memesis with regard to film fiction in general and film violence in particular. Transfigurations deconstructs the idea that the film image is a transparent entity, and proposes instead that filmicity is always opaque. In turn, this argument leads to the conclusion that all film fiction is amimetic, and that it entails processes of transfiguration rather representation, aesthetic theorization rather than mimetic reflection. By considering film violence not as a mirror but as a trope, this book shows how the violence in films may be interpreted as a discourse on death and masculinity."--Jacket In many senses, viewers have cut their teeth on the violence in American cinema: from Anthony Perkins slashing Janet Leigh in the most infamous of shower scenes; to the 1970s masterpieces of Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah and Francis Ford Coppola; to our present-day undertakings in imagining global annihilations through terrorism, war, and alien grudges. Transfigurations brings our cultural obsession with film violence into a renewed dialogue with contemporary theory. Grønstad argues that the use of violence in Hollywood films should be understood semiotically rather than viewed realistically; Tranfigurations thus alters both our methodology of reading violence in films and the meanings we assign to them, depicting violence not as a self-contained incident, but as a convoluted network of our own cultural ideologies and beliefs |
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| Item Description: | Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002 |
| Physical Description: | 274 pages illustrations |
| ISBN: | 9789089640307 9089640304 1282171410 6612171413 9048520592 9781282171411 9786612171413 |