Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema

by Todd Berliner

Overview

Hollywood makes the most widely successful pleasure-giving artworks the world has ever known. The industry operates under the assumption that pleasurable aesthetic experiences, among huge populations, translate into box office success. With that goal in mind, Hollywood has systematized the delivery of aesthetic pleasure, packaging and selling it on a massive scale.

In Hollywood Aesthetic, Todd Berliner accounts for the chief attraction of Hollywood cinema worldwide: its entertainment value. The book examines films such as City Lights and Goodfellas that have earned aesthetic appreciation from both fans and critics. But it also studies some curious outliers, cult films, and celebrated Hollywood experiments, such as The Killing and Starship Troopers. And it demonstrates that even ordinary popular films, from Tarzan and His Mate to Rocky III, as well as action blockbusters, like Die Hard and The Dark Knight, offer aesthetic pleasure to mass audiences. Hollywood Aesthetic explains how Hollywood engages viewers by satisfying their aesthetic desires.

Visit the companion website at www.oup.com/us/hollywoodaesthetic

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190658755
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/03/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Todd Berliner, Professor of Film Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, teaches film aesthetics, narration, and style and American film history. Author of Hollywood Incoherent: Narration in Seventies Cinema (2010), Professor Berliner has received two Fulbright Scholar awards, including the Laszlo Orszagh Distinguished Chair in American Studies. Professor Berliner was the founding chairman of UNCW's Film Studies Department. He holds a master's degree and doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.

Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface: The Test of Time
Introduction

Part I. Hollywood Classicism and Deviation
1. The Hollywood Aesthetic
2. Classicism and Deviation in His Girl Friday and Double Indemnity

Part II. Narrative
3. Hollywood Storytelling
4. Finding the Fit: Shifting Story Logic in Red River

Part III. Style
5. Hollywood Style
6. Raging Bull's Stylistic Dissonance

Part IV. Ideology
7. Ideology, Emotion, and Aesthetic Pleasure
8. Crime Films during the Period of the Production Code Administration
9. Genre and Ideology in Starship Troopers

Part V. Genre
10. The Hollywood Genre System
11. Bursting into Song in the Hollywood Musical
12. Complexity and Experimentation in the Western

Conclusion
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Has there ever been a work reflecting on the characteristic aesthetic features, value, and experience afforded by Hollywood filmmaking with anything approaching the self-consciousness, rigor, and flair exhibited in Todd Berliner's Hollywood Aesthetic? ... Berliner's book offers us a theory of the aesthetic and of the Hollywood aesthetic, in which critical analysis plays a key supporting role." — Murray Smith, Professor of Film, University of Kent

"In his book Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema (2017), Todd Berliner lays out a theory of how and why popular cinema succeeds in entertaining millions of viewers. His book is provocative and convincing, full of detailed examples from particular movies and fascinating general insights." — James Cutting, Professor of Psychology, Cornell University

"Todd Berliner's Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema (2017) offers useful broad theoretical arguments about how to understand our pleasures in viewing cinema. The value of the project is combining standard film-critical knowledge with the cognitive strand of psychological theory. In this effort, Berliner provides an enhancement of a major trajectory in film and media studies." — Janet Staiger, Professor Emeritus of Communication, University of Texas at Austin

"Todd Berliner's Hollywood Aesthetic is a major contribution to the study of Hollywood movies. While many previous critics — notably, auteur critics — have defended the artistry of selected subsets of Hollywood films, Berliner makes a compelling case for the aesthetic value of Hollywood cinema as a whole — as a rich and varied tradition that includes both ordinary films and time-tested classics. He supports his argument with detailed examples from dozens of movies." — Patrick Keating, Professor of Communication, Trinity University

"Scholars have long debated why we find Hollywood films pleasurable. Berliner's bold and provocative thesis is that they give us aesthetic pleasure, and he skillfully mines the philosophical and psychological literature to support his contention, providing fresh analyses of a number of well-known Hollywood films along the way. The book constitutes a passionate defense of Hollywood against its many detractors who condemn its aesthetics as uniform and therefore passivity-inducing, and is required reading for anyone interested in the enduring appeal of Hollywood cinema." — Malcolm Turvey, Sol Gittleman Professor and Director of Film and Media Studies, Tufts University

"Written in a lucid and engaging style, Todd Berliner's Hollywood Aesthetic explains why so many Hollywood films remain beloved today. Like the classic movies it examines, this smart and lively book strikes the perfect balance between interest and pleasure." — Patrick Keating, Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Trinity University

"This is a provocative, lively analysis of the ways Hollywood movies pleasure their audiences. Berliner skillfully connects aesthetic and ideological meanings to nuances of film structure which he explores in illuminating and insightful ways. This is an original and exciting study." — Stephen Prince, author of Digital Visual Effects in Cinema: The Seduction of Reality

"Clear, well-structured, comprehensive, illustrated with quality images, and in dialogue with mainstream psychology research, [Hollywood Aesthetic] could serve as a textbook without reading like one...Berliner eloquently lays out an approach to Hollywood as a mass art, intricately fills it with evidence and argumentation for aesthetic pleasure, and demonstrates his claims across a range of films, all in one comprehensive volume."—Canadian Journal of Film Studies

"Berliner's engaging and fresh cognitive approach to familiar topics within film studies makes it appropriate for both undergraduates, who might be encountering these topics for the first time, as well as for graduate students and film scholars looking for new understanding and insight based on scientific and cognitive theories. The book is cogently argued and comprehensively examines entertainment cinema and the aesthetic pleasures associated with it that have been too long ignored." — Laura L. Beadling, Journal of American Culture

From the Publisher