Reel Rituals : Ritual Occasions from Baptisms to Funerals in Hollywood Films, 1945-1995
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Ritual occasions in the movies can bring us to laughter and tears and hope and regret; the chords they strike suggest the complex intersection between American movies and our lives. Major ritual occasions of weddings, baptisms, bar mitzvahs, funerals, graduations and birthday parties appear in hundreds of popular films produced by Hollywood throughout the 20th century. This study suggests that these stock scenes are more significant to American film than we might have thought. Ritual occasions in the movies are most often less than transformative experiences, but more than simple recreations of ceremony. This book examines the tension between authentic ritual occasions and an event on film that is often twisted or devoid of meaning, and suggests that this complex ambivalence toward ritual occasions in American film is related to other ritualized conventions in American movies and American culture.
About the Author
Parley Ann Boswell is a professor of English at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois. She has contributed essays on film to four volumes of Beyond the Stars. She became seriously interested in Hollywood movies while she was writing her dissertation on 17th-century Puritan sermons. Currently she is working on a collection of short stories.
Paul Loukides is a professor of English at Albion College where he has taught since the year Spartacus was released. His interest in film conventions dates back to the moment in childhood when he first recognized that when a movie character said it was "too quiet," there was an action sequence coming. Professor Loukides is currently at work on a freshman composition reader and a novel based on the adventures of John Wise, the 19th-century balloonist.
Reel Rituals : Ritual Occasions from Baptisms to Funerals in Hollywood Films, 1945-1995,Parley Ann Boswell,Paul Loukides,Popular Press 1,0879727926,Cinema/Film: Book,Film & Video - General,Film & Video - History & Criticism,Folklore & Mythology,Performing Arts,Pop Arts / Pop Culture,Popular Culture - General,Rites and ceremonies in motion,Rites and ceremonies in motion pictures,Social Science / Popular Culture
Reel Rituals : Ritual Occasions from Baptisms to Funerals in Hollywood Films, 1945-1995
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