New Hollywood violence [Paperback]

New Hollywood violence is a groundbreaking collection of essays devoted to an interrogation of various aspects, dimensions, and issues relating to the depiction of violence in New Hollywood filmmaking. 'New Hollywood' refers to the return to genre filmmaking following America's flirtation with European art cinema in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and is characterised by vast production budgets, and special effects.

Focusing on the motivations, the formal and stylistic qualities and the cultural politics of violence as well as the effects on viewers, the collection is divided into four sections: 'Surveys and schemas'; 'Spectacle and style'; 'Race and gender' and 'Politics to ideology'. An Afterword by Stephen Prince reflects on the various essays and points the way towards areas of future exploration.

List of illustrations

Notes on contributors

Introduction - Steven Jay Schneider

Preface - Thomas Schatz

I Surveys and schemas

1. The 'film violence' trope: New Hollywood, 'the sixties', and the politics of history - J. David Slocum

2. Hitchcock and the dramaturgy of screen violence - Murray Pomerance

3. Violence redux - Martin Barker

4. The big impossible: Action-adventure's appeal to adolescent boys - Theresa Webb and Nick Browne

II Spectacle and style

5. Aristotle v. the action film - Thomas Leitch

6. 'Killingly funny': Mixing modalities in New Hollywood's comedy-with-violence - Geoff King

7. Killing in style: The aestheticization of violence in Donald Cammell's 'White of the Eye' - Steven Jay Schneider

8. Terrence Malick's war film sutra: Meditating on 'The Thin Red Line' - Fred Pheil

III Race and Gender

9. From homeboy to 'Baby Boy': Masculinity and violence in the films of John Singleton - Paula J. Massood

10. 'Once upon a time there were three little girls': Girls, violence and 'Charlie's Angels' - Jacinda Read

11. Playing with firelÇ