Author: Thomas J. Cobb Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan ISBN: 9783030426804 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 264
Book Description
This book contends that Hollywood films help illuminate the incongruities of various periods in American diplomacy. From the war film Bataan to the Revisionist Western The Wild Bunch, cinema has long reflected US foreign policy’s divisiveness both directly and allegorically. Beginning with the 1990s presidential drama The American President and concluding with Joker’s allegorical treatment of the Trump era, this book posits that the paradigms for political reflection are shifting in American film, from explicit subtexts surrounding US statecraft to covert representations of diplomatic disarray. It further argues that the International Relations theorist Walter Mead’s concept of a US polity dominated by contesting beliefs, or a ‘kaleidoscope’, permeates these changing paradigms. This synergy reveals a cultural milieu where foreign policy fissures are increasingly encoded by cinematic representation. The interdisciplinarity of this focus renders this book pertinent reading for scholars and students of American Studies, Film Studies and International Relations, along with those generally interested in Hollywood filmmakers and foreign policy.
Author: Jessica Julia McGill Peters Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 397
Book Description
This dissertation analyzes the complex relationship between U.S. diplomatic efforts overseas and cinematic representations, perceptions, and receptions--as well as the implications of this association for cross-cultural interactions--through the American Film Showcase (AFS), a diplomatic program jointly organized by the University of Southern California and the U.S. Department of State. Specifically, my study examined the showcase's implementation (i.e. the selection/approval and screening of films), the objectives of the AFS' organizers, and how the program was received in Monterrey, Mexico--in other words, how the AFS films and activities were interpreted. Following these implementation and reception analyses, I conducted in-depth ethnographic research focusing on program participants' ongoing responses to the AFS through their subsequent perceptions and work/activities. My results have helped to identify/clarify how perceptions of power, imperialism, and U.S. society shape people's receptivity abroad to ideas about America and diplomatic interactions. They also illustrate ways in which current on-the-ground impressions of the U.S. shift--or why they persist--due to such outreach, and what this means for cultivating international relationships and transforming attitudes towards the U.S. by means of diplomatic efforts. These results thus offer insight into the benefits and drawbacks of cultural diplomacy, and may help to improve future diplomatic endeavors in regions significant to U.S. foreign relations.
Author: Thomas J. Cobb Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan ISBN: 9783030426774 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 264
Book Description
This book contends that Hollywood films help illuminate the incongruities of various periods in American diplomacy. From the war film Bataan to the Revisionist Western The Wild Bunch, cinema has long reflected US foreign policy’s divisiveness both directly and allegorically. Beginning with the 1990s presidential drama The American President and concluding with Joker’s allegorical treatment of the Trump era, this book posits that the paradigms for political reflection are shifting in American film, from explicit subtexts surrounding US statecraft to covert representations of diplomatic disarray. It further argues that the International Relations theorist Walter Mead’s concept of a US polity dominated by contesting beliefs, or a ‘kaleidoscope’, permeates these changing paradigms. This synergy reveals a cultural milieu where foreign policy fissures are increasingly encoded by cinematic representation. The interdisciplinarity of this focus renders this book pertinent reading for scholars and students of American Studies, Film Studies and International Relations, along with those generally interested in Hollywood filmmakers and foreign policy.
Author: Sangjoon Lee Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1501752332 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 331
Book Description
Cinema and the Cultural Cold War explores the ways in which postwar Asian cinema was shaped by transnational collaborations and competitions between newly independent and colonial states at the height of Cold War politics. Sangjoon Lee adopts a simultaneously global and regional approach when analyzing the region's film cultures and industries. New economic conditions in the Asian region and shared postwar experiences among the early cinema entrepreneurs were influenced by Cold War politics, US cultural diplomacy, and intensified cultural flows during the 1950s and 1960s. By taking a closer look at the cultural realities of this tumultuous period, Lee comprehensively reconstructs Asian film history in light of the international relationships forged, broken, and re-established as the influence of the non-aligned movement grew across the Cold War. Lee elucidates how motion picture executives, creative personnel, policy makers, and intellectuals in East and Southeast Asia aspired to industrialize their Hollywood-inspired system in order to expand the market and raise the competitiveness of their cultural products. They did this by forming the Federation of Motion Picture Producers in Asia, co-hosting the Asian Film Festival, and co-producing films. Cinema and the Cultural Cold War demonstrates that the emergence of the first intensive postwar film producers' network in Asia was, in large part, the offspring of Cold War cultural politics and the product of American hegemony. Film festivals that took place in cities as diverse as Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur were annual showcases of cinematic talent as well as opportunities for the Central Intelligence Agency to establish and maintain cultural, political, and institutional linkages between the United States and Asia during the Cold War. Cinema and the Cultural Cold War reanimates this almost-forgotten history of cinema and the film industry in Asia.
Author: Thomas J. Cobb Publisher: Springer Nature ISBN: 3030426785 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 270
Book Description
This book contends that Hollywood films help illuminate the incongruities of various periods in American diplomacy. From the war film Bataan to the Revisionist Western The Wild Bunch, cinema has long reflected US foreign policy’s divisiveness both directly and allegorically. Beginning with the 1990s presidential drama The American President and concluding with Joker’s allegorical treatment of the Trump era, this book posits that the paradigms for political reflection are shifting in American film, from explicit subtexts surrounding US statecraft to covert representations of diplomatic disarray. It further argues that the International Relations theorist Walter Mead’s concept of a US polity dominated by contesting beliefs, or a ‘kaleidoscope’, permeates these changing paradigms. This synergy reveals a cultural milieu where foreign policy fissures are increasingly encoded by cinematic representation. The interdisciplinarity of this focus renders this book pertinent reading for scholars and students of American Studies, Film Studies and International Relations, along with those generally interested in Hollywood filmmakers and foreign policy.
Author: Sarah Nilsen Publisher: McFarland ISBN: 078648537X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 211
Book Description
The Brussels World's Fair was perhaps the most important propaganda event to be staged for European allies in the Eisenhower years; his administration viewed culture as a weapon in the battle against communism. This book examines the critical role of film in the information war waged against the Soviets in the American pavilion at the fair. The administration sought to create a visual rendition of America that was arresting and inspirational; film was used as a method of political persuasion.
Author: Adrián Pérez Melgosa Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 0415532930 Category : Art Languages : en Pages : 262
Book Description
Cinema and Inter-American Relations studies the key role that commercial narrative films have played in the articulation of the political and cultural relationship between the United States and Latin America since the onset of the Good Neighbor policy (1933). As a result, it reveals the existence of a continued cinematic conversation between Anglo and Latin America about a cluster of shared allegories representing the continent and its cultures.
Author: John Belton Publisher: ISBN: 9780071326179 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 448
Book Description
American Cinema/American Culture looks at the interplay between American cinema and mass culture from the 1890s to 2011. It begins with an examination of the basic narrative and stylistic features of classical Hollywood cinema. It then studies the genres of silent melodrama, the musical, American comedy, the war/combat film, film noir, the western, and the horror and science fiction film, investigating the way in which movies shape and are shaped by the larger cultural concerns of the nation as a whole. The book concludes with a discussion of post World War II Hollywood, giving separate chapter coverage to the effects of the Cold War, 3D, television, the counterculture of the 1960s, directors from the film school generation, and the cultural concerns of Hollywood from the 1970s through 2011. Ideal for Introduction to American Cinema courses, American Film History courses, and Introductory Film Appreciation courses, this text provides a cultural overview of the phenomenon of the American movie-going experience. An updated study guide is also available for American Cinema/American Culture. Written by Ed Sikov, this guide introduces each topic with an explanatory overview written in more informal language, suggests screenings and readings, and offers self-tests.
Author: Thomas J. Cobb
Author: Jessica Julia McGill Peters
Author: Thomas J. Cobb
Author: Sangjoon Lee
Author: Thomas J. Cobb
Author: Sarah Nilsen
Author: Jennifer Fay
Author: Reinhold Wagnleitner
Author: Adrián Pérez Melgosa
Author: John Belton