American Cinema of the 1990s SCREEN AMERICAN CULTURE / AMERICAN CINEMA DECADES Each volume in the Screen Decades: American Culture/American Cinema series presents a group of original essays analyzing the impact of cultural issues on the cin- ema and the impact of the cinema in American society. Because every chapter explores a spectrum of particularly significant motion pictures and the broad range of historical events in one year, readers will gain a continuing sense of the decade as it came to be depicted on movie screens across the continent. The integration of his- torical and cultural events with the sprawling progression of American cinema illu- minates the pervasive themes and the essential movies that define an era. Our series represents one among many possible ways of confronting the past; we hope that these books will offer a better understanding of the connections between American culture and film history. LESTER D. FRIEDMAN AND MURRAY POMERANCE SERIES EDITORS Ina Rae Hark, editor, American Cinema of the 1930s: Themes and Variations Wheeler Winston Dixon, editor, American Cinema of the 1940s: Themes and Variations Murray Pomerance, editor, American Cinema of the 1950s: Themes and Variations Barry Keith Grant, editor, American Cinema of the 1960s: Themes and Variations Lester D. Friedman, editor, American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations Stephen Prince, editor, American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations Chris Holmlund, editor, American Cinema of the 1990s: Themes and Variations American Cinema of the 1990s Themes and Variations EDITED BY CHRIS HOLMLUND RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY, AND LONDON For my dearest dad LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA American cinema of the 1990s : themes and variations / edited by Chris Holmlund. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0-8135–4365–9 (hardcover : alk. paper)—ISBN 978–0-8135–4366–6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures—United States—History. 2. Motion pictures—United States—Plots, themes, etc. I. Holmlund, Chris. PN1993.5.U6A8579 2008 791.430973'09049—dc22 2007051728 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. This collection copyright © 2008 by Rutgers, The State University Individual chapters copyright © 2008 in the names of their authors All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permis- sion from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854–8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Visit our Web site: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Manufactured in the United States of America CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Timeline:The 1990s ix Introduction: Movies and the 1990s 1 CHRIS HOLMLUND 1990 Movies and the Off-White Gangster 24 LINDA MIZEJEWSKI 1991 Movies and Wayward Images 45 SHARON WILLIS 1992 Movies and the Politics of Authorship 70 AMY VILLAREJO 1993 Movies and the New Economics of Blockbusters and Indies 91 CHUCK KLEINHANS 1994 Movies and Partisan Politics 115 DIANE WALDMAN 1995 Movies,Teens,Tots, and Tech 137 TIMOTHY SHARY 1996 Movies and Homeland Insecurity 157 DEBRA WHITE-STANLEY AND CARYL FLINN 1997 Movies and the Usable Past 180 JOSÉ B. CAPINO 1998 Movies, Dying Fathers, and a Few Survivors 203 KRIN GABBARD 1999 Movies and Millennial Masculinity 225 CHRIS HOLMLUND Select Academy Awards, 1990–1999 249 Works Cited and Consulted 255 Contributors 271 Index 273 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS From start to finish this anthology has been a collective endeavor, even though I have held primary responsibility as editor. Together the essayists and I have discussed how best to showcase key films among the many from the 1990s we find intriguing. We have tried to make our individual essays dovetail with each other, in order to provide a more complex picture of the cultural, political, and technological shifts that affected both Hollywood and U.S. independent films during this decade. We have also tried to highlight how and why the U.S. film industry was connected to other film industries and multinational corporations. And we have made a point of mentioning other films and authors we think you will appreciate in our essays as well as in the bibliography. In these acknowledgments, therefore, I want first and foremost to thank my ten co-authors for their great insights, good humor, and warm support over the several years it has taken to finish this project. I’m so pleased to count you as friends! Many thanks, too—and on behalf of my colleagues as well—to our students. You may not always realize it, but we learn a lot from you. Every essay included here draws on our teaching experiences, not just on our research. My work on the volume has bene- fited immensely from testing my ideas and those of others in this collection in classes on U.S. cinema of the 1990s and American independent film. Pro- found thanks to my students in these classes in particular for your feedback and suggestions. Working with Rutgers University Press has been great: special thanks to Leslie Mitchner and Rachel Friedman for their help, as well as to Marilyn Campbell and Eric Schramm. Thanks, too, to series editors Les Friedman and Murray Pomerance. I really appreciate how readily and cheerfully you pitched in each time I needed you! I also want to thank the skilled staff at the University of Tennessee library and the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences Margaret Herrick library for help with archival sources. And I thank the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, the Office of Research, and the Humanities Initiative at the University of Ten- nessee for funding the cost of the cover image and indexing. Last and not least, warm thanks to my friends and family in the United States, Sweden, and elsewhere. Special hugs to Diane Waldman for many wonderful hikes and discussions over the years; “tack så mycket” to Karin vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Bark, my oldest friend; “tack också” to my beloved aunt Gunnel Källgren. And Dad: “tusen tack” for being such a terrific father and role model, and for becoming one of my very best friends. TIMELINE The 1990s ■■■■■■■■■■ 1990 10 JANUARY Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. merge to form TimeWarner. 11 FEBRUARY Anti-apartheid activist and African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela is released from prison in South Africa after being incarcerated for more than twenty-seven years on charges of “terrorism.” 15 APRIL Glamorous, beautiful, and reclusive Swedish screen star Greta Garbo (Grand Hotel [1932], Queen Christina [1933]) dies. 2 AUGUST Iraq invades and conquers Kuwait. 7 AUGUST Operation Desert Shield begins, and the first U.S. forces—F-16 Eagle fighters from Langley Air Force Base, Virginia—arrive in Saudi Arabia. 3 OCTOBER Germany is reunited for the first time since the end of World War II, less than a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. 13 NOVEMBER The first known web page is written. ■■■■■■■■■■ 1991 16 JANUARY The U.S. government authorizes the use of military force to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s invasion. Operation Desert Storm and the first Persian Gulf War begin on 17 January with air attacks on Iraq. 3 MARCH Amateur video captures the beating of taxi driver Rodney King by four Los Angeles police officers after King is stopped for a traffic violation. 13 AUGUST The Super Nintendo entertainment system is released in the United States. 3 SEPTEMBER Beloved American director Frank Capra (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [1939], Meet John Doe [1941], It’s a Wonderful Life [1946]) dies. 15 OCTOBER Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court is confirmed after bitter Senate Judiciary Committee hearings in which former employee Anita Hill accuses Thomas of sexual harassment. ix x TIMELINE — THE 1990s 25 DECEMBER Soviet president Mikhail S. Gorbachev resigns, ending seventy- four years of communist reign. On 31 December the Soviet Union officially ceases to exist. ■■■■■■■■■■ 1992 16 JANUARY El Salvador officials and rebel leaders sign a pact in Mexico City, ending a twelve-year civil war that killed at least 75,000. 29 APRIL Violence and looting erupt in Los Angeles after four white police officers are acquitted in the beating of Rodney King. Fifty-eight people are killed with nearly $1 billion in damages within five days. 22 MAY Johnny Carson retires from “The Tonight Show” after thirty years as its host. 24–28 AUGUST Called the costliest storm ever in the United States, Hurricane Andrew devastates south Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. 3 NOVEMBER Arkansas governor Bill Clinton defeats incumbent President George H.W. Bush and independent H. Ross Perot in the U.S. presidential election. ■■■■■■■■■■ 1993 26 FEBRUARY Terrorists connected to Osama bin Laden park a van containing a bomb below the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Six people are killed and more than a thousand are injured in the blast. 27 FEBRUARY Screen legend Lillian Gish (Birth of a Nation [1915], Broken Blossoms [1919], Night of the Hunter [1955], Whales of August [1987]) dies. 28 FEBRUARY The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raids the compound of the Branch Davidian religious sect near Waco, Texas, with arrest warrants for cult leader David Koresh on federal firearms violations. An exchange of gunfire results in the deaths of four agents and six Branch Davidians. A fifty-one-day siege by the Federal Bureau of Investigation follows. Attorney General Janet Reno orders a final FBI assault on 19 April. A fire set by sect members destroys the complex, and seventy-six people, including women and children, perish.