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Rollerball
Rollerball, the Canadian-born director and producer Norman Jewison's 1975 vision of a future dominated by anonymous corporations and their executive elite, in which all individual effort and aggressive emotions are subsumed into a horrifically violent global sport, remains critically overlooked. What little has been written deals mainly with its place within the renaissance of Anglo-American science fiction cinema in the 1970s, or focuses on the elaborately shot, still visceral to watch, game sequences, so realistic they briefly gave rise to speculation Rollerball may become an actual sport.
Drawing on numerous sources, including little examined documents in the archive of the film's screenwriter William Harrison, Andrew Nette examines the many dimensions of Rollerball's making and the way it simultaneously exhibits the aesthetics and narrative tropes of mainstream action and art-house cinema; the elaborate and painstaking process of world creation undertaken by Jewison and Harrison; and the cultural forces and debates that influenced them, including the increasing corporate power and growing violence in Western society in late 1960s and early 1970s. Nette shows how a film that was derided by many critics for its violence works as a sophisticated and disturbing portrayal of a dystopian future that anticipates numerous contemporary concerns, including "fake news" and declining literary and historical memory. The book includes an interview with Jewison on Rollerball's influences, making, and reception.
Drawing on numerous sources, including little examined documents in the archive of the film's screenwriter William Harrison, Andrew Nette examines the many dimensions of Rollerball's making and the way it simultaneously exhibits the aesthetics and narrative tropes of mainstream action and art-house cinema; the elaborate and painstaking process of world creation undertaken by Jewison and Harrison; and the cultural forces and debates that influenced them, including the increasing corporate power and growing violence in Western society in late 1960s and early 1970s. Nette shows how a film that was derided by many critics for its violence works as a sophisticated and disturbing portrayal of a dystopian future that anticipates numerous contemporary concerns, including "fake news" and declining literary and historical memory. The book includes an interview with Jewison on Rollerball's influences, making, and reception.
120 pages, Paperback
First published March 27, 2018
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11 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Nette
44 books126 followersAndrew Nette is an award winning writer of fiction and non-fiction, pulp scholar, bibliophile, noir aficionado.
He is the author of three novels, Ghost Money, a crime story set in Cambodia in the mid 1990, Gunshine State and Orphan Road. His short fiction has appeared in a number of print and online publications, including Phnom Penh Noir and The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir , which won the prestigious Anthony Award in the US for best crime anthology in 2018.
He is co-editor of three books on the history of midcentury pulp and paperback publishing for PM Press, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 to 1980, Sticking it to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1956 to 1980, and Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950-1980. Dangerous Visions and New Worlds won the 2022 Aurealis Convenors Award for Excellence and the Locus Magazine award for non-fiction, and was been nominated for a Hugo award for non-fiction.
His scholarly works are Rollerball (Liverpool University Press, 2018), a monograph about Norman Jewison’s 1975 dystopian classic, and Horwitz Publications, Pulp Fiction and the Rise of Australian Paperback (Anthem Press, 2022).
His latest non-fiction book, co-edited with New York critic Samm Deighan, is Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema, from the Arthouse to the Grindhouse, 1960-1990 .
He writes a regular newsletter under his name on Substack.
He is the author of three novels, Ghost Money, a crime story set in Cambodia in the mid 1990, Gunshine State and Orphan Road. His short fiction has appeared in a number of print and online publications, including Phnom Penh Noir and The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir , which won the prestigious Anthony Award in the US for best crime anthology in 2018.
He is co-editor of three books on the history of midcentury pulp and paperback publishing for PM Press, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 to 1980, Sticking it to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1956 to 1980, and Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950-1980. Dangerous Visions and New Worlds won the 2022 Aurealis Convenors Award for Excellence and the Locus Magazine award for non-fiction, and was been nominated for a Hugo award for non-fiction.
His scholarly works are Rollerball (Liverpool University Press, 2018), a monograph about Norman Jewison’s 1975 dystopian classic, and Horwitz Publications, Pulp Fiction and the Rise of Australian Paperback (Anthem Press, 2022).
His latest non-fiction book, co-edited with New York critic Samm Deighan, is Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema, from the Arthouse to the Grindhouse, 1960-1990 .
He writes a regular newsletter under his name on Substack.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 11, 2018
Australian writer and pop culture maven Andrew Nette’s ROLLERBALL is the third great work of his I’ve read and enjoyed. The others are his lushly-illustrated exploration of vintage “youthsploitaiton” novels published in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, GIRL GANGS, BIKER BOYS, AND REAL COOL CATS and his novel GUNSHINE STATE, a terrific hardboiled crime novel set in Australia and Thailand. Nette’s definitive history and analysis of Norman Jewison’s classic 1975 science fiction film ROLLERBALL was published by the prestigious science fiction imprint, CONSTELLATIONS. In it, he provides an amazing treasure trove of facts and anecdotes about the origins and making of the film, insights into how the film both reflected and influenced trends in American culture, and a great exclusive interview with director Jewison. If you’re a fan of science fiction in general or ROLLERBALL in particular, you’ll love this reading book. I definitely did.
January 12, 2019
Terrific exploration of the conception, context, production, reception and distribution of Rollerball. Excellent reading of the broader genre and how the themes of the short story and film relate to the political tenor of the times, as well as the influence this film has had. Recommend it to anyone interested in a period and a film that 'is many things: an intensely commercial piece of violent action entertainment; a pseudo exploitation film; a snapshot of an angry, disillusioned, turbulent time in the mid-1970s; a sophisticated story about the fragility of memory and the loss of history; and a depiction of an oppressive society that seems anything but what it actually is. It is a fitting dystopian vision for the times that much of the world currently finds itself in.'
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews