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Ecocriticism and the Environmental Sensibility of New Hollywood

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by Adam O'Brien

Type

Studies

Subject

Sociology

Keywords

ecology, ideology, New Hollywood

Publishing date

2022

Publisher

Berghahn Books

Collection

Berghahn on Film

1st publishing

2016

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 228 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-1-80073-723-5

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Book Presentation:
In their bold experimentation and bracing engagement with culture and politics, the “New Hollywood” films of the late 1960s and early 1970s are justly celebrated contributions to American cinematic history. Relatively unexplored, however, has been the profound environmental sensibility that characterized movies such as The Wild Bunch, Chinatown, and Nashville. This brisk and engaging study explores how many hallmarks of New Hollywood filmmaking, such as the increased reliance on location shooting and the rejection of American self-mythologizing, made the era such a vividly “grounded” cinematic moment. Synthesizing a range of narrative, aesthetic, and ecocritical theories, it offers a genuinely fresh perspective on one of the most studied periods in film history.

About the Author:
Adam O’Brien teaches film studies at the universities of Bristol and Reading. He has published articles on ecocriticism and film in a number of journals, including Film Criticism, Journal of Media Practice, and ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment.

Press Reviews:
"This valuable work engages fully with the field of cinema studies and demonstrates ways of building on traditional film theory from an ecocritical perspective. The author speaks the language of film aesthetics, provides sophisticated analyses that go beyond cursory readings of plot and narrative, and directly engages with film technology and its impact on textual meaning." · Stephen A. Rust, University of Oregon

"This is a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of ecocinema. The analyses of individual films are all expertly positioned within the existing literature, and O’Brien makes a convincing case for rethinking New Hollywood, as a mode of production and a cultural moment, from an ecocritical perspective." · Pietari Kääpä, University of Stirling

See the publisher website: Berghahn Books