Reelpolitik ideologies in American political film / Beverly Merrill Kelley.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In Reelpolitik Ideologies in American Political Film, Beverly Merrill Kelley examines more than a century of political movie history, providing a thorough historical background for diametrically opposed political ideologies in order to facilitate debate and dialectical learning. Kelley explores 185 American political movies (categorized by ideological themes and presented in chronological order) in order to illustrate the history of film as well as the history of the specific political ideology. Each chapter includes a case study which provides an in-depth analysis of the single film that best illustrates the ideology at hand, including: The Candidate (populism), Wall Street (elitism), The Godfather (fascism), All the President's Men (anti-fascism), Patton (interventionism), and M*A*S*H (isolationism). Reelpolitik Ideologies in American Political Film establishes a paradigmatic analysis of political films that details the cyclical nature of ideological dialectic throughout American history and identifies the values, attitudes, and beliefs of the voters who choose not to affiliate with Republicans and Democrats, and who often determine the outcomes of elections. The text also includes an extensive ideological filmology spanning more than 100 years of American cinema. This study represents a bold investigation of the political and social values of American film, and is an essential text in the study of the relationship between culture and politics.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This is Kelley's third volume in a sequence of similar works. The first volume, Reelpolitik: Political Ideologies in '30s and '40s Films (CH, Sep'99, 37-0204), which she coauthored with several others, comprises ten essays, six by Kelley (communication, California Lutheran Univ.); the second, Reelpolitick II: Political Ideologies in '50s and '60s Films (CH, Sep'04, 42-0200), was a solo effort. The present book retreads ideas and prose from the earlier work to frame a discussion of six films primarily from the early 1970s, including The Candidate, Wall Street, The Godfather, All the President's Men, Patton, and M*A*S*H. As before, Kelley sets up several binaries (populism/elitism, fascism/anti-fascism, interventionism/isolationism), which produce simplistic readings. She abandons each of these at the end of the chapter in favor of a discussion of "why [the film] worked"; here she treats performance and marketing issues quite apart from political intent or effect. As was the case in the second volume, the brief concluding chapter retreats to a set of conflicting generalizations about the role of film in society, leaving this reader wondering what the project was all about. Robin Wood's Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan ... and Beyond (CH, Jan'04, 41-2702) offers a more incisive analysis of politics in films of the period. Summing Up: Not recommended. K. S. Nolley Willamette University