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The American Art Cinema, 1965-2005: Reconsideration and Review

INTRODUCTION 5

PRELUDE: “Through the Looking Glass: The American Art Cinema in an Age of Social Change” 13 “American Modernists: Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train and Jill Sprecher’s Thirteen Conversations about One Thing” 29 “Back to the Future, or the Vanguard Meets the Rearguard: Gus Van Sant’s Last Days and Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know” 43 “Transcendental Style in the Cinema: David Lynch’s The Straight Story and Lodge Kerrigan’s Keane” 53 “Actor-Directors at Work and Play: Billy Bob Thornton’s Sling Blade and John Turturro’s Mac” 71 “Engendering Genre: on Julia Loktev’s Day Night Day Night” 85 “Medium Cool: Peter Weir’s The Truman Show and Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog” 91 “Sexual Politics, at Home and Abroad: Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Whit Stillman’s Barcelona” 107 “Dangerous Liaisons, or Sex, Lies, and Burlesque: Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy and Neil LaBute’s In the Company of Men” 119 “The Happiness of Your Friends and Neighbors: Neil LaBute’s Your Friends and Neighbors and Todd Solondz’s Happiness” 135 “Soul Affliction: Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ and Paul Schrader’s Affliction” 147 INTERLUDE: “Shooting the City: The Gangster, Manhattanites, and the Movies: On Paul Mazursky’s Next Stop, Greenwich Village; Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver; John Badham’s Saturday Night Fever; Herbert Ross’s The Goodbye Girl; and Woody Allen’s Manhattan” 153 “Jungle Paradise: Victor Nuñez’s Ruby in Paradise and David O. Russell’s Spanking the Monkey” 171 “Westward Faux: “David Jacobson’s Down in the Valley and Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain” 185 “Falling in and Out of Love, Again: Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Stuart Gordon’s Edmond” 195 “Two Ways to Play House: David Mamet’s House of Games and Bill Forsyth’s Housekeeping” 211 “The Violence of the Christ: Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and the New Screen Violence” 219 “Vietnam Revisited: Oliver Stone’s Platoon and Ted Post’s Go Tell the Spartans” 231 4

“Flags and Letters, Men and War: Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima” 241 “Black and White, in Color: Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever” 251 “On the Road Again: The Road Film and the Two Coppolas” (on Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rain People) 261 “Lost in Transition: Dan Algrant’s People I Know and Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers” 275 POSTSCRIPT: “The Ghost of Cinema Past: On Mike Nichols’ Carnal Knowledge; Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show; Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets; John D. Hancock’s Bang the Drum Slowly; Frank Perry’s Last Summer; Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller; Sydney Pollack’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?; Terrence Malick’s Badlands; and George Roy Hill’s Slaughterhouse-Five” 285

FILM CREDITS 311 FILMOGRAPHIES 329 BIBLIOGRAPHY 349 INDEX 357