Elvis Cinema and Popular Culture - Softcover

Douglas Brode

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786425261 ISBN 13: 9780786425266

Publisher: McFarland & Co, 2006

Synopsis

Though Elvis Presley's music is widely credited as starting a sea change in American popular culture, his films are often dismissed as base marketing vehicles, commercially successful but insignificant. Beyond the formulaic plotlines and increasing reliance on weak songs, however, the films - and Elvis - serve as profound cultural touchstones, revealing changing American aesthetics more than a changing Elvis. Elvis's rebel image in 1956, as a guitar-swinging incarnation of Brando or Dean, had by 1969's Change of Habit become safe and sterile. This work demonstrates how Elvis, through his films, reflected a shifting social, cultural and political landscape in America. Encompassing all 31 movies and two 1970s documentaries, it provides a film-by-film study of Elvis Presley and America, and argues that each film reflects the society for which it was made. Throughout his career, most of Elvis's characters combined rebellion with wholesome, traditional ideals, but the public's perspective changed, and what was considered radical in 1954 was called reactionary by 1970. Studied sequentially, his films reflect those cyclical ideals, and unconsciously portray America's process of renewal and redefinition of self.

About this title

Review:

"Elvis fans will welcome Brode's study, which makes the case for more significance in the Presley musicals than most critics have yet seen. You'll never watch Love Me Tender or Spinout the same way again (and again!)."--Linda Ray Pratt, author, Elvis, or the Ironies of a Southern Identity.

About the Author:

Douglas Brode, novelist, screenwriter, playwright, film historian, and multi-award-winning working-journalist, teaches courses on various popular culture subjects at the Newhouse School of Public Communications, Department of Radio, TV and Film, at Syracuse University. The author of more than thirty-five books on the visual and performing arts, he regularly appears on national radio and TV shows as a special guest.

About this edition

• Publisher: McFarland & Co
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0786425261
• ISBN 13: 9780786425266
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 319