Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Annotated Bibliography Example

Cohen, S., 1997.Masked Men: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties. Indiana: Indiana University Press. Available at: <http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=UACyelofecEC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=vertigo+crisis+of+masculinity&ots=ViFMGZ31uy&sig=n58M1_jYh85aKwmmbBO1zs0q31g#v=onepage&q=vertigo%20crisis%20of%20masculinity&f=false> [Accessed 28 November 2012]

This book is a study on male culture in the fifties and uses the movies as representations of that cultural time period to examine his thesis by. The author, Steve Cohen, contends that American culture in the fifties was much more conflicted than generally remembered by history and that this conflict can be seen through the depiction of the era in the movies. Cohen explains that male masculinity in the fifties was generalized and typeset, as he puts it, as the “man in the gray flannel suit” but in fact, that image was not an accurate picture of the unstable and ever-changing fifties male. Furthermore, the idea of masculinity has always been an unstable one, changing throughout the times and not just in the fifties. Cohen discusses various contrasts in male activity versus the “man in the gray flannel suit” fifties ideology, such as sexual ideology and post-war adjustment. The research is limited to white male, middle-class status in the fifties.

Gant-Chopra, M., 2006.Hollywood Genres and Post-war America: Masculinity, Family and Nation in Popular Movies and Film Noir. London: I.B. Tauris. Available at: <http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=RVdCSSVd_KQC&oi=fnd&pg=PP7&dq=crisis+of+masculinity+in+post+war+era&ots=IBxJwsVd4F&sig=G2P7SYOpo0bvB02F1Q614CbhRhk> [Accessed 28 November 2012]

This book is another resource that uses movies to portray the culture of the fifties and postwar-America. This resource has a more narrow focus of using the film noir genre specifically as its representation tool. Tables are included that give statistics on the most popular films in the US in 1946 and the 20 highest revenue earning films in the US from 1946-1950. Topics discussed include the Zeitgeist, Film Noir, post-war America, Hollywood genres and intellectualism.

IMDB, 1990.The Searchers.[online] Available at: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049730/> [Accessed 28 November 2012].

This resource is a movie starring John Wayne and directed by John Ford, and released in 1956. The movie centers around a Civil War veteran who has spent years searching for a niece of his that was captured by Indians. The veteran has a deep-seated hatred for Indians and as the movie progresses his intentions toward the assimilated niece become unclear. This movie is a good fit to use as a resource on this project because it portrays the confused feelings of a man who is undecided whether to act on the love for family or to do what he believes to be the duty of a man.  The movie shows the unstable emotion present even in the all-man war veteran and cowboy.

IMDB, 1990.Vertigo. [online] Available at: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052357/> [Accessed 28 November 2012].

This resource is also a movie, released in 1958 and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Vertigo stars James Stewart in the lead male role. The movie revolves around a retired San Francisco police detective who suffers from a case of acrophobia, which is an abnormal fear of high places. A wealthy shipbuilder and acquaintance from their college days hires the retired detective to follow his wife who believes she is possessed by a dead ancestor. The shipbuilder fears for his wife’s life, that she may do harm to herself. In following her, the retired detective is forced to enter some very high places. This movie works as a resource for this project because the main character is an older, retired police officer, someone you would expect to be very reserved, controlled, and fear nothing. In contrast, he is entranced with Madeleine the shipbuilder wife’s beauty and intensely afraid of high places. At times he requires help to get back down from the high places she leads him to, often in the form of younger male officers. This puts a wrench in the typical fifties male stereotype and was in the box office and on DVD today for to be viewed.

Lusted, D., 2003.The Western. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd. Pp.13-37.

Book written by David Lusted and released in 2003. This book is an educational book introducing the reader or student to the analyzing of western films as to their meaning in American culture. The book is about how the Western changes in time and how these changes have been understood and portrayed through film criticism. Up until the 1980s the western was the most made film genre in Hollywood. For a fifty year run, Hollywood embraced the making of western films and profited greatly from their popularity. The Western is a great resource for this project because it dives in and examines why the western genre was so popular with Americans during the post-war era and during the fifties. The book has two parts, part one presents the history of the western and film studies regarding the western and part two deals with western origins in nineteenth century America.

Mulvey, L., 2000. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. In: E. Ann Kaplan, ed. 2000. Feminism and Film. Edinburgh: Oxford University Press. pp.34-47.

This resource is a paper examining the results of applying psychoanalysis to the public’s fascination with film. The paper examines the role of the female in helping to firmly place a male in their rightful perceived role in society. One of the premises of the paper is that female characters have not been properly established in the cinema and so male characters are not proper representations of the true male role as lived in American fifties society. Fascination with cinema is suggested to come out in a variety of ways, such as “fascination with the human form” and “woman as image, man as bearer of the look”.

Peak Chapman, W., 1998. Cherchez la Femme: The Searchers, Vertigo, and Masculinity in Post-Kinsey America. Journal of American Culture, [e-journal] 21 (2), Available through: EBSCOhost database [Accessed 28 November 2012].

This resource is a paper that examines two sourced films, The Searchers and Vertigo, in relation to the masculinity in American culture. It is a useful resource since it provides additional insight into the two films that is related to this project topic.