The Oxford Handbook of American Film History offers a series of newly-commissioned chapters on the current intellectual and topical diversity of the study of American film history. It provides a thorough look at the complex history of American cinema, and showcases a variety of historiographic practices and methods. Within each of the five chronological sections, readers will find discourse on technology, reception, exemplary films and filmmakers, the culture of celebrity, and ind...

Upon its release, John McTiernan's Die Hard (1988)was met with immense commercial and critical success; breaking the $100 million mark at the box office in its first run, and resulting in four Academy Award nominations.Jon Lewis's study of the action classicclosely examines the film's novel and script adaptation, highlighting the influential role of producer Joel Silver. He delves into Silver's ground-breaking 'whammy theory', which redefined script struct...

Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Part II (1974) is a magisterial cinematic work, a gorgeous, stylized, auteur epic, and one of the few sequels judged by many to be greater than its predecessor. This despite the fact that it consists largely of meetings between aspiring 'Godfather' Michael Corleone and fellow gangsters, politicians and family members. The meetings remind us that the modern gangster's success is built upon inside information and on strategic planning. Michael a...

How a new generation of counterculture talent changed the landscape of Hollywood, the film industry, and celebrity culture.By 1967, the commercial and political impact on Hollywood of the sixties counterculture had become impossible to ignore. The studios were in bad shape, still contending with a generation-long box office slump and struggling to get young people into the habit of going to the movies. Road Trip to Nowhere examines a ten-year span (from 19...

A tale of censorship and regulation at the heart of the modern film industryIn 1972, The Godfather and Deep Throat were the two most popular films in the country. One, a major Hollywood studio production, the other an independently made "skin flick." At that moment, Jon Lewis asserts, the fate of the American film industry hung in the balance.Spanning the 20th century, Hollywood v. Hard Core weaves a gripping tale of censo...

Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) marked a transition in American film-making, and its success – as a work of art, as a creative 'property' exploited by its studio, Paramount Pictures; and as a model for aspiring auteurist film-makers – changed Hollywood forever.Jon Lewis's study of The Godfather begins with a close look at the film's audacious visual style (the long, theatrical set pieces; the chiaroscuro lighting, the climactic montage paralleling a family baptism with ...

Film scholarship has long been dominated by textual interpretations of specific films. Looking Past the Screen advances a more expansive American film studies in which cinema is understood to be a social, political, and cultural phenomenon extending far beyond the screen. Presenting a model of film studies in which films themselves are only one source of information among many, this volume brings together film histories that draw on primary sources including collections of persona...

Thirty-four essays that take a serious look at the state of modern cinemaAlmost half a century ago, Jean-Luc Godard famously remarked, "I await the end of cinema with optimism." Lots of us have been waiting forand wondering aboutthis prophecy ever since. The way films are made and exhibited has changed significantly. Films, some of which are not exactly "films" anymore, can now be projected in a wide variety of wayson screens in revamped high tech theaters, on big,...

Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) marked a transition in American film-making, and its success – as a work of art, as a creative 'property' exploited by its studio, Paramount Pictures; and as a model for aspiring auteurist film-makers – changed Hollywood forever.Jon Lewis's study of The Godfather begins with a close look at the film's audacious visual style (the long, theatrical set pieces; the chiaroscuro lighting, the climactic montage paralleling a fa...

In When the Movies Mattered Jonathan Kirshner and Jon Lewis gather a remarkable collection of authors to revisit the unique era in American cinema that was New Hollywood. Ten eminent contributors, some of whom wrote about the New Hollywood movement as it unfolded across the 1960s and 1970s, assess the convergence of film-industry developments and momentous social and political changes that created a new type of commercial film tha...

Can I Help YouBy: Jon LewisCan I Help You describes the journey of the author from childhood to retirement. How family relationships can affect people and how remote family members helped him overcome problems.Although the author has a master’s degree, his success has come mostly from learning outside traditional education. The readers can gain success through self-help from many sources including libraries. They can learn the difference between wants and needs and ...

The tragic and mysterious circumstances surrounding the deaths of Elizabeth Short, or the Black Dahlia, and Marilyn Monroe ripped open Hollywood’s glitzy façade, exposing the city's ugly underbelly of corruption, crime, and murder. These two spectacular dead bodies, one found dumped and posed in a vacant lot in January 1947, the other found dead in her home in August 1962, bookend this new history of Hollywood. Short and Monroe are just two of the many left for dead after the collapse of t...