Triumph over Containment: American Film in the 1950s

Author:   Robert P. Kolker
Publisher:   Rutgers University Press
ISBN:  

9781978820920


Pages:   232
Publication Date:   15 October 2021
Recommended Age:   From 16 to 99 years
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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Triumph over Containment: American Film in the 1950s


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Overview

The long 1950s, which extend back to the early postwar period and forward into the early 1960s, were a period of ""containment culture"" in America, as the media worked to reinforce traditional family values and suspected communist sympathizers were blacklisted from the entertainment industry. Yet some brave filmmakers and actors still challenged the status quo to produce indelible and imaginative work that delivered uncomfortable truths to Cold War audiences. Triumph Over Containment offers an uncompromising look at some of the era's greatest films and directors, from household names like Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick to lesser-known iconoclasts like Samuel Fuller and Ida Lupino. Taking in everything from The Thing from Another World (1951) to Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), acclaimed film scholar Robert P. Kolker scours a variety of different genres to find pockets of resistance to the repressive and oppressive norms of Cold War culture. He devotes special attention to two quintessential 1950s genres-the melodrama and the science fiction film-that might seem like polar opposites, but each offered pointed responses to containment culture. This book takes a fresh look at such directors as Nicholas Ray, John Ford, and Orson Welles, while giving readers a new appreciation for the depth and artistry of 1950s Hollywood films.

Full Product Details

Author:   Robert P. Kolker
Publisher:   Rutgers University Press
Imprint:   Rutgers University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.425kg
ISBN:  

9781978820920


ISBN 10:   1978820925
Pages:   232
Publication Date:   15 October 2021
Recommended Age:   From 16 to 99 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Introduction  1 On Containment, Screen Size, and the Lightness and the Dark  2 “It Was Like Going Down to the Bottom of the World”: John Garfield and Enterprise  3 “I’m a Stranger Here Myself”: Nicholas Ray and Ida Lupino  4 “Love, Hate, Action, Violence, and Death . . . in One Word: Emotion”: Joseph Losey and Samuel Fuller  5 “Put an Amen to It”: The Old Masters—Welles, Hitchcock, Ford  6 Looking to the Skies: Science Fiction in the 1950s  7 “How Can You Say You Love Me . . . ?”: Melodrama  Conclusion: “Complete Total Final Annihilating Artistic Control”—Stanley Kubrick Explodes Containment  Acknowledgments Notes  Selected Bibliography  Index   

Reviews

New Books Network: New Books in Film interview with Robert P. Kolker -- New Books Network: New Books in Film Robert Kolker ingeniously uses George Kennan's Cold War strategy of 'containment' as a metaphor to illuminate the complex interplay between movies and politics in this personal, yet incisive exploration of America's pop culture in the 1950's. --Peter Biskind author of Seeing is Believing and Easy Riders, Raging Bulls Unabashedly autobiographical and unapologetically auteurist, Robert Kolker's trip into the fever heat of 1950s American cinema is an eloquent and erudite delight. --Peter Stanfield author of The Cool and the Crazy: Pop Fifties Cinema


Robert Kolker ingeniously uses George Kennan's Cold War strategy of 'containment' as a metaphor to illuminate the complex interplay between movies and politics in this personal, yet incisive exploration of America's pop culture in the 1950's. --Peter Biskind author of Seeing is Believing and Easy Riders, Raging Bulls Unabashedly autobiographical and unapologetically auteurist, Robert Kolker's trip into the fever heat of 1950s American cinema is an eloquent and erudite delight. --Peter Stanfield author of The Cool and the Crazy: Pop Fifties Cinema


"""New Books Network: New Books in Film interview with Robert P. Kolker""-- ""New Books Network: New Books in Film"" ""Robert Kolker ingeniously uses George Kennan's Cold War strategy of 'containment' as a metaphor to illuminate the complex interplay between movies and politics in this personal, yet incisive exploration of America's pop culture in the 1950's.""--Peter Biskind ""author of Seeing is Believing and Easy Riders, Raging Bulls"" ""Unabashedly autobiographical and unapologetically auteurist, Robert Kolker's trip into the fever heat of 1950s American cinema is an eloquent and erudite delight.""--Peter Stanfield ""author of The Cool and the Crazy: Pop Fifties Cinema"""


"“Unabashedly autobiographical and unapologetically auteurist, Robert Kolker’s trip into the fever heat of 1950s American cinema is an eloquent and erudite delight.” -- Peter Stanfield * author of The Cool and the Crazy: Pop Fifties Cinema * “Robert Kolker ingeniously uses George Kennan’s Cold War strategy of 'containment' as a metaphor to illuminate the complex interplay between movies and politics in this personal, yet incisive exploration of America’s pop culture in the 1950’s.” -- Peter Biskind * author of Seeing is Believing and Easy Riders, Raging Bulls * ""New Books Network: New Books in Film interview with Robert P. Kolker"" * New Books Network: New Books in Film *"


Author Information

ROBERT P. KOLKER is a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland in College Park. He is author of numerous books, including The Extraordinary Image: Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and the Reimagining of Cinema (Rutgers University Press), A Cinema of Loneliness, Film, Form, and Culture, and, with Nathan Abrams, Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick and the Making of his Final Film. He is currently at work on a biography of Stanley Kubrick with Nathan Abrams.

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