Synopses & Reviews
The "New Wave" style of American film of the 1960s and 70s--characterized by exciting, narrative innovation and sometimes adventurous reworkings of older film genres, as well as images of solitude and explosive violence--has come to an end. Erasing virtually all traces of 60s and 70s experimentation, American film in the 1980s has returned with a vengeance to a more linear, conventional style.
In this newly revised edition of The Cinema of Loneliness, Robert Phillip Kolker continues and expands his inquiry into the phenomenon of cinematic representations of culture by updating the chapters on the directors discussed in the first edition--Arthur Penn, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, and Robert Altman--to include their latest work, and by substituting for the chapter on Francis Ford Coppola a chapter on the cultural, political, and ideological formations of eighties films and the work of Steven Spielberg. He incorporates new discussions to include the more recent films, such as Arthur Penn's Four Friends (1983) and Target (1985); Stanley Kubrick's direction of The Shining (1980) and Full Metal Jacket (1987); Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), After Hours (1985), and The Color of Money (1986); and Robert Altman's A Perfect Couple (1979), Popeye (1980), Streamers (1983), A Fool for Love (1985), and Beyond Therapy (1987).
Placing the films of Penn, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, and Altman in an ideological perspective, Kolker both illuminates their relationship to one another and to larger currents in our culture, and emphasizes the statements their films make about American society.
Review
"An excellent work of film criticism, and as such, demands response and debate....Kolker's analyses of each director's work...are stimulating, provocative, insightful and passionate, models of film analysis."--San Francisco Review of Books
Synopsis
In this twentieth-anniversary millennial edition, Kolker continues and expands his inquiry into the cinematic representation of culture by updating and revising the chapters on the directors discussed in the first edition-- Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, and Steven Spielberg-- to include their most important works since 1988, analyzing those films which have made important advances in the directors' careers and which have given cause for rethinking the films that preceded them. Included is a profile of Arthur Penn's career followed by a new comparative study of Oliver Stone, who mirrors Penn's practice of drawing his films out of historical and ideological currents. Placing the films of Penn, Stone, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, and Altman in an ideological perspective, Kolker both illuminates their relationship to one another and to larger currents in our culture, and emphasizes the statements their films make about American society and culture. This edition includes a new preface, a requiem for Stanley Kubrick, updated filmography, and 48 images from various films discussed through the text.
Description
Filmography: p. [421]-464. Includes bibliographical references (p. [407]-419) and index.