Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Cinema / Edition 1

by Wheeler Winston Dixon

Overview

Visions of the Apocalypse examines the cinema's fascination with the prospect of nuclear and/or natural annihilation, as seen in such films as Saving Private Ryan, Bowling for Columbine, We Were Soldiers, Invasion U.S.A., The Last War, Tidal Wave, The Bed Sitting Room, The Last Days of Man on Earth and numerous others. It also considers the ways in which contemporary cinema has become increasingly hyper-conglomerised, leading to films with ever-higher budgets and fewer creative risks. Along the way, the author discusses such topics as the death of film itself, to be replaced by digital video; the political and social tensions that have made these visions of infinite destruction so appealing to the public; and the new wave of Hollywood war films, coupled with escapist comedies, in the post-9/11 era. Encompassing both questions of physical and filmic mortality Visions of the Apocalypse is a meditation on the questions of time, memory and the cinema's seemingly unending appetite for spectacles of destruction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781903364741
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	09/17/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.16(w) x 9.34(h) x 0.52(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Endowed Professor of Film Studies, Chair of the Film Studies Program, and professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, as well as Editor-in-Chief of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video. He has published numerous books on the subject of cinema.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Tyranny of Images
1. Freedom from Choice
2. Invasion U.S.A.
3. The Limits of Time
Coda: The Copenhagen Defense
Works Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

A dynamic and provocative new book, which challenges its readers with some unsettling arguments.

film-philosophy.com - Daniel Herbert

[Dixon's] analysis of films, many of them undeservedly neglected, is often enlightening; and his assessment of contemporary business practices in Hollywood is refreshing.

Choice

Dixon takes on grand themes in this slim volume, no less than the 'end of cinema.'

— Richard Ascarate

Film Quarterly

A dynamic and provocative new book, which challenges its readers with some unsettling arguments.

— Daniel Herbert, University of Southern California

film-philosophy.com

Dixon takes on grand themes in this slim volume, no less than the 'end of cinema.'

Film Quarterly - Richard Ascarate

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