Table of Contents
About the Editor viii
Notes on Contributors ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: The Action Film: “Over Familiar and Understudied” 1James Kendrick
Part I History 9
1 Origins of the Action Film: Types, Tropes, and Techniques in Early Film History 11Kyle Barrowman
2 A Genre of Its Own: From Westerns, to Vigilantes, to Pure Action 35James Kendrick
3 The New Dominance: Action‐Fantasy Hybrids and the New Superhero in 2000s Action Cinema 55Lisa Purse
4 Around the World in Action 74Mark Gallagher
Part II Form and Aesthetics 97
5 The Perpetual Motion Aesthetic of Action Cinema 99Nick Jones
6 Asian Action Cinema and Its Influence on Hollywood 118Barna William Donovan
7 Comedy in Action 140Cynthia M. King
8 The Composite Body: Action Stars and Embodiment in the Digital Age 165Drew Ayers
9 Translating the Panel: Remediating a Comics Aesthetic in Contemporary Action Cinema 187Joshua Wucher
Part III Auteurs: Directors, Stars, Choreographers 207
10 Akira Kurosawa, Sam Peckinpah, and the Action Concept of Eastern Westerns 209Stephen Teo
11 The Martial Arts Supremacy: Action Film and Fight Choreography 227Paul Bowman
12 All Guts and No Glory: Stuntwork and Stunt Performers in Hollywood History 241Lauren Steimer
13 Hollywood’s Hard Bodies: The Stars Who Made the Action Films Famous 256Susan Jeffords
14 The Strange Case of Carlos Ray Norris: Reactionary Masculinity and Its Imaginary Discontents 270Tony Williams
15 New Action Realism: Claustrophobia, Immediacy, and Mediation in the Films of Kathryn Bigelow, Paul Greengrass, and Michael Mann 289Vincent M. Gaine
Part IV Social and Cultural Issues 307
16 Postmodernism in Action Movies 309Micheal McAlexander
17 The 1980s Action Film and the Politics of Urban Expulsions 325Jon Kraszewski
18 Infinite Crisis: Intertextuality and Watchmen 345Matt Yockey
19 Blowing Up the War Film: Powerlessness and the Crisis of the Action‐Image in The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds 364Paul Gormley
20 X‐Men/Action Men: Performing Masculinities in Superhero and Science‐Fiction Cinema 381Yvonne Tasker
21 Unlikely Action Heroine: Melissa McCarthy Challenges Bodily Ideals in Modern Action Film 398Jeffrey A. Brown
22 “I Am Become Death”: Managing Massacres and Constructing the Female Teen Leader in The 100 417Rikke Schubart
23 A Digital Nature: Lucy Takes Technology for a Ride 439Lorrie Palmer
24 “I Feel the Need, the Need for Speed”: Prosthetics, Agency Panic, and the High‐Tech Action Film 456Steffen Hantke
Index 473