Explores the similarities and differences between the portrayals of General George Armstrong Custer in "They Died with Their Boots On" (1941) and "Son of the Morning Star" (1991). Analyzes the effects of revisionist history and ideological transformations that occurred in the 50 years between the 2 films. (PA)

Discusses the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School and how it offers a way of seeing normally obscured relations of social power in the details of modern capitalist culture. Concentrates on claims about critical theory that have functioned as strategies of denial. (MS)

Traces the Romanticism in the work and persona of film director Jean-Luc Godard. Examines the contradictions posed by Godard's politics and representations of sexuality. Asserts, that by bringing an ironic distance to the works of such canonized directors, viewers can take pleasure in those works despite their contradictions. (MM)

Discusses the 1955 Vladimir Nabokov novel "Lolita," and the central theme of "Lolita" being a prize in a struggle between two men. Examines some of the moments of sadomasochism in the novel and film, and the relationship between director Stanley Kubrick and the lead actor Peter Sellers. Concludes with an analysis of Kubrick's…

Argues that the dominant themes in Bigelow's "Blue Steel" are female subservience, masculine authority, sex as economic exchange and guilty pleasure, woman as threatening and domestic, and castration anxiety. Analyzes Jamie Lee Curtis's portrayal of the protagonist, Megan Turner, as being androgynous when in uniform, and as possessor of…

Explores the prevalence of the gunfighter as mythic hero. Compares the depictions of Clint Eastwood's characters from the beginning of Eastwood's career ("A Fistful of Dollars" and "Pale Rider") to "Unforgiven," finding similarities and differences in each character. (PA)

Argues that the filmwork of Alfred Hitchcock shows his manipulation of melodramatic silence in that his films demonstrate a link between silence and truth. Concludes that in the simultaneous longing for and denial of the power of film silence lies the modernist complexity of Hitchcock's films that suggests the uses of melodramatic language in a…

Muses on the difference between film in the theater and on home video, using "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" as an example. Chronicles the complete viewing experience of this particular film at home. States that although home video supplies an excellent tool for "how-to" analysis, its interactivity cannot supply a valid theory of…

Examines Vitagraph's explicit intertextual claims for "quality" films (films connected to canonized literary texts, historical figures, and biblical characters and texts). Describes a theoretical model for using intertextuality to situate readers and texts in the broader culture. Suggests how non-industry intertextual evidence…

Analyzes Zalman King's 1990 film "Red Shoe Diaries." Argues that the conflicting interests of sexual desire in "Red Shoe Diaries" are indicative of the placement of female heterosexual desire within contemporary culture. Concludes that "Red Shoe Diaries" offers a narrative about the importance and construction of…

Calls into question Kevin Costner's reconfiguration of the Indian in his film "Dances with Wolves." Examines and evaluates differences between the original theatrical version and the 50-minutes longer version shown on ABC television in the context of the canonical images that Costner disputes. Concludes the ABC version compels the viewer…

Explores silent film actress Norma Talmadge's "star persona" in the 1920s. Focuses on the public discourses that provide the background for Talmadge's departure from the screen. Analyzes why her two "talkies" failed commercially and critically. Concentrates on promotional and publicity materials and on the films themselves. (PA)

Posits that the birth of the road film is linked to interrelated postwar phenomena: the advent of the automobile as an expression of individuality, and the emergence of a large strata of restless youth. Discusses road films from 1950 to the 1990s. Finds that the gradual depoliticization of road film rebellion must itself be understood finally as…

Postulates that, if genres serve as problem-solving constructs for the cultures they reflect and are fundamentally conservative structures committed to temporary resolutions of the hopeless contradictions that produce their dramas, then Brian DePalma's "Scarface" exemplifies the ways gangster films of the 1980s redefined generic…

Examines the classical paradigm in which both temporal and spatial cohesion constitute a popular and desirable characteristic in presentational story-telling. Argues that fragmentation's maneuvers are as effective as a configurating tool and as cohesion because they advance the ideological, psychoanalytic, aesthetic, essentialist, and story…