Sinema Savaşları: Bush-Cheney Döneminde Hollywood Sineması ve Siyaset

by Douglas Kellner, Gürol Koca (Translator), Özge Çelik (Editor)

Filmleri belli bir tarihsel-toplumsal bağlama oturtarak okumaya, dönemin olay ve mücadelelerini nasıl ifade ettiklerini göstermeye yönelik muazzam bir çalışma Sinema Savaşları. Dahası, filmlerin eleştirel yorumlarının günümüz kültür ve toplumunu anlamamıza yardımcı olabileceğini ve böylece siyaset ve devlet, şirketler ve ekonomi, ekonomik kriz ve çevre krizi, terör, savaş, militarizm ve demokrasiye yönelik tehditler hakkındaki önemli tartışmalara katkıda bulunabileceğini ortaya koyuyor.
Hollywood sinemasıyla ilgili farklı film teorilerinden yararlanan Kellner, film, siyaset ve değişen Amerikan kültürü ile toplumunun kesişim noktasını veren çok perspektifli bir film eleştirisi geliştiriyor. Bunu yaparken de hileli 2000 seçimlerinden Irak Savaşı'na, 11 Eylül ve Bush-Cheney hükümetinden ABD tarihi ve Amerikan değerlerine kadar pek çok meseleyle ilgili çok sayıda kurgusal ve belgesel filmi, animasyonu, dizi filmi ve TV programını analiz ediyor.
"Yirmi birinci yüzyılın ilk sekiz yılı yoğun siyasi mücadelelere ve rezilliklere tanıklık etti. Hollywood sineması da bütün bunların tam göbeğindeydi, günümüz seyircisi ile geleceğin seyircilerine söz konusu dönemin kâbuslarını kavramalarını sağlayacak sinematik vizyonlar sundu. Yeni bir döneme girerken, kim bilir daha ne krizler, mücadeleler ve çarpıcı olaylar var bizi bekleyen. Ve bu yeni yeni ortaya çıkan tarihsel uğrak bağlamında Hollywood filmlerinin nasıl gelişeceğini görmek harika olacak!"

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Film

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Douglas Kellner is a "third generation" critical theorist in the tradition of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, or Frankfurt School. Kellner was an early theorist of the field of critical media literacy and has been a leading theorist of media culture generally.[citation needed] In his recent work, he has increasingly argued that media culture has become dominated by the forms of spectacle and mega-spectacle. He also has contributed important studies of alter-globalization processes, and has always been concerned with counter-hegemonic movements and alternative cultural expressions in the name of a more radically democratic society.

Kellner has written with a number of authors, including (with Steven Best) an award-winning trilogy of books on postmodern turns in philosophy, the arts, and in science and technology. More recently, he is known for his work exploring the politically oppositional potentials of new media and attempted to delineate what they term "multiple technoliteracies" as a movement away from the present attempt to standardize a corporatist form of computer literacy. Previously, Kellner served as the literary executor of the famed documentary film maker Emile de Antonio and is presently overseeing the publication of six volumes of the collected papers of the critical theorist Herbert Marcuse. At present, Kellner is the George Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Mike Rancourt · Rating 2 out of 5]

It must have been tough to be a prominent leftist scholar during the Bush years. A lot of them seemed to feel the need to publish some really undisciplined criticism of Bush that feels more like blog posts than scholarship sometimes. I want to like this book because it's built on some good media theory, but the partisan rants really destroy the credibility. We get it. You hate Bush. We all hate Bush. Fine.
Kellner writes, "Throughout this book, I attempt to show how critical interpretations of film can help provide understanding of contemporary US culture and society" (p. 17) but it's pretty clear that what he does in this book is apply political frames to aide in the interpretation of films. However, he does have a point when he continues, "...and thus contribute to important debates over politics and the state, corporations and the economy, economic and environmental crisis, terrorism, war and militarism, and threats to democracy" (p. 17). Yes, the films build, as Storey says of post Vietnam films (borrowing from Foucault), "regimes of truth." Yes, films help shape how people see the Bush Administration. Unfortunately, the analysis in this book is not really focused on that because Kellner brings his anti-Bush politics into the interpretations and doesn't pay as much attention to how interpretations lead to anti-Bush politics.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very clever man. Now I hate all my favourite films.