A World in Chaos: Social Crisis and the Rise of Postmodern Cinema

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This text traces the evolution of postmodern cinema through its multiple and overlapping expressions. Through an analysis of films such as "American Beauty", "Blade Runner", "Natural Born Killers" and "Thelma and Louise", Carl Boggs and Thomas Pollard explore the historical and theoretical shift from the long era of modernity to an emergent postmodernity and xamine its intersection with film culture, bringing together elements of sociology, history, economics, literature, communications and pop culture to fully explore the complex developmental interaction between film and society. The resulting work illuminates the different, often conflicted and contradictory, currents at work in the film industry that long ago departed from the ritualized practices of the classical studio system. The book is aimed at film and pop culture enthusiasts as well as everyone interested in the role of film in global society.

Reviews

This is a work of major importance. A brilliant analysis of the contradictory currents within the contemporary film industry; exemplary in its use of critical social theory to account for the evolving character of American film, especially the emergence of the antipolitical film. What makes this volume both unique and urgent not only is the accomplished way the authors are able to situate film production and reception within wider cultural, economic, political, and intellectual transformations but also the authors' sophisticated grasp of media culture. -- Peter McLaren, Emeritus Professor, the University of California, Los Angeles
A World in Chaos is an outstanding survey of the cultural, economic, and social dimensions of postmodern cinema that re-reads the world since the 1960s through recent American films. Boggs and Pollard also reappraise critical changes in the politics, economics, and aesthetics of the global film industry amidst the tremendous transformations being experienced by America since the Vietnam War. This book should engage anyone interested in contemporary social criticism and cultural studies. -- Timothy W. Luke, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Boggs and Pollard emphasize the complex developmental interaction between film and its broader social environment, seeing American film culture equally as an aesthetic form, a mode of entertainment, a component of the mass media, and a profitable industry within a globalized setting. This postmodernism allows for diversity, critique, marginality, and even rebelliousness within the mainstream culture industry. * Art Book News Annual *
...It is a good introductory book for anyone who is new to postmodern cinema, needs to learn more about how cultural products need to be interpreted in their social contexts, or anyone interested in reading a survey of some of the most well known movies made in Hollywood in the last two decades. * Contemporary Sociology *
An engaging exploration in cultural studies and political theory that should be a hit with students and general readers. Very few works surveying the trajectory of contemporary cinema effectively trace social developments characteristic of postmodern chaos yet also demonstrate with such clarity their effective presence in film culture. -- Ray Pratt, author of Projecting Paranoia and Rhythm and Resistance

Author Bio

Carl Boggs is professor in the School of Arts and Sciences at National University. His previous books include The End of Politics: Corporate Power and the Decline of the Public Sphere, The Socialist Tradition: From Crisis to Decline, and Intellectuals and the Crisis of Modernity. Thomas Pollard is also professor in the School of Arts and Sciences at National University, where he specializes in pop culture and literature.