Sensing the Past

Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-0-19-992764-7
Verlag: ACADEMIC

Buch, Englisch, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 564 g

How do perceptions of the past--not just of particular events, but of the trajectory of history as a whole--shape our experience of the world? To answer this (and other) questions, Jim Cullen looks closely at the work of what might be considered an unlikely source of historical insight--the work of six major Hollywood stars. Indeed, Cullen offers a fascinating portrait of pivotal movements that have shaped our history as reflected in the work of Clint Eastwood, Daniel Day-Lewis, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, and Jodie Foster. By focusing on the career choices made by these powerful actors, all of whom have the rare ability to put their personal stamp on their work, Cullen reveals a discrete set of historical narratives, including a surprising strain of Jeffersonian communitarianism that runs through Eastwood's work, a sense of how the frontier shaped American character as reflected in the roles chosen by Day-Lewis, the Lincoln-styled belief in institutions and the power of ordinary people that runs through the films of Tom Hanks (like Jimmy Stewart before him), and the history of liberal feminism of the last century captured in the movies of Meryl Streep. That these historical patterns emerge in the work of these six artists--almost certainly unintentionally--sheds much light on the way that, for all of us, historical forces can shape our understanding of the world without our being aware of them.

Zielgruppe

Both film buffs and history buffs; readers of general interest periodicals like The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, and The Nation; academic journals like The Journal of Popular Culture, Journal of American History, Cinema Journal, Screen, Adaptation; undergraduate courses on American history.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cullen

Cullen, Jim

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Einzelne Filmschauspieler, Filmregisseure, Drehbuchautoren
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Medien-, Informations und Kommunikationswirtschaft Filmindustrie
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmtheorie, Filmanalyse

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction
Chapter One Tending to the Flock: Clint Eastwood, Ambivalent Wanderer
Chapter Two Daniel Day-Lewis and the Frontier in American History
Chapter Three Equal Work: The Mystique of Meryl Streep
Chapter Four Denzel Washington, Affirmative Actor
Chapter Five Team Player: Tom Hanks, Company Man
Chapter Six The Brave One: Jodie Foster, American Loner
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Jim Cullen teaches history at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City. He is the author of The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation, Born in the U.S.A.: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition, and other books. Cullen is also a book review editor at the History News Network. He lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.