Reading Hollywood: Spaces and Meanings in American Film

by Deborah Thomas

This book examines the treatment of space and narrative in a selection of classic films including My Darling Clementine , It's a Wonderful Life , and Vertigo . Deborah Thomas employs a variety of arguments in exploring the reading of space and its meaning in Hollywood cinema and film generally. Topics covered include the importance of space in defining genre (such as the necessity of an urban landscape for a gangster film to be a gangster film); the ambiguity of offscreen space and spectatorship (how an audience reads an unseen but inferred setting), and the use of spatially disruptive cinematic techniques such as flashback to construct meaning.

Genres: Film

144 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2001

Reviews

[Belinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really great succinct exploration of spaces and meanings in contemporary films. Simple without being simplistic, this book breaks sophisticated concepts into easily understood language. I wish this book had been around when I was an undergraduate - I would recommend it to any film student. Plus it has a great bibliography to plunder for further research - always a fantastic resource.