Projecting the Shadow: The Cyborg Hero in American Film (New Practices of Inquiry (Paperback)) - Softcover

Rushing, Janice Hocker Hocker; Frentz, Thomas S.

 
9780226731674: Projecting the Shadow: The Cyborg Hero in American Film (New Practices of Inquiry (Paperback))
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0226731677 ISBN 13: 9780226731674
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1995

Synopsis

Part human, part machine, the cyborg is the hero of an increasingly popular genre of American film and, as Janice H. Rushing and Thomas S. Frentz so provocatively suggest, a cultural icon emblematic of an emergent postmodern mythology. Using the cyborg film as a point of departure, Rushing and Frentz examine how we rework Western myths and initiation rites in the face of new technologies.

Through in-depth examinations of six representative films—Jaws, The Deer Hunter, The Manchurian Candidate, Blade Runner, The Terminator, and Terminator 2—Rushing and Frentz track the narrative's thread from the hunter to his technological nemesis, demonstrating how each film represents an unfolding hunter myth.

For each movie, Rushing and Frentz show how uninitiated male hunters slowly lose control over their weapons. In Jaws, a 'soft' man, dominated by technology, can re-acquire the heroic hunter qualities he needs by teaming up with a 'savage' man and a 'technological' man. In doing so, he can still conquer the prey. The Manchurian Candidate charts how technology can turn a human into a weapon; Blade Runner perfects the artificial human with its manufactured replicants who are "more than human"; and The Terminator introduces a female hunter who leads humanity in its struggle against technology.

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From the Back Cover

Through in-depth examinations of six representative films, the authors' track the narrative's thread from the frontier hunter to the rise of his technological nemesis, demonstrating how each film dramatizes a phase of an unfolding myth.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Publication date
1995
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0226731677
ISBN 13 
9780226731674
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
2
Number of pages
274

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780226731667: Projecting the Shadow – The Cyborg Hero in American Film (New Practices of Inquiry (Hardcover))

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0226731669 ISBN 13:  9780226731667
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1996
Hardcover