Studying Comtemporary American Films: A Guide to Movie Analysis » (1st Edition)

Thomas Elsaesser, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Warren Buckland, Oxford Brookes University, UK

What are the most appropriate theories and methods for analyzing contemporary America cinema? This book answers this question by taking an innovative approach to writing about individual movies: in each of the main chapters the authors examine the assumptions behind one traditional theory of film (e.g. auteurism, narratology, psychoanalysis), distil a method of analysis from it, and then analyze a contemporary American movie. They then go beyond the traditional theory by analyzing the same movie using a more current theory and method (e.g. new media theory, deconstruction, cognitivism).