Hollywood Action and Adventure Film (eBook)

Yvonne Tasker is Professor of Film and Media at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema (1993) and Soldiers' Stories: Military Women in Cinema and Television Since WWII (2011), and editor of Action and Adventure Cinema (2004).

Contents

List of Plates vii

Acknowledgements xiii

1 Action and Adventure as Genre 1

2 Action and Adventure:Historical and Cultural Overview 23

3 Critical Perspectives on Action and Adventure 45

4 Silent Spectacle and Classical Adventure: The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) 71

5 War, Violence and the American Action Hero:

Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and Hell is for Heroes (1962) 89

6 Violence and Urban Action: Dirty Harry (1971) 107

7 Nostalgic Adventure and Recycled Culture: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) 121

8 Action Blockbusters in the 1980s: Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Die Hard (1988) 137

9 Global and Postmodern Action: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Kill Bill (2003) 151

10 Espionage Action: The Bourne Identity (2002) and Salt (2010) 165

11 Superhero Action Cinema 179

Bibilography 193

Index 000

"Even for readers familiarised with the previous work of Yvonne Tasker, this book brings a new look into her main area of study, as it presents not only issues pertaining the body and the representation of women in action and adventure, but also more general elements which help understand genre criticism as a whole and the action and adventure film in particular. Furthermore, and as a manual for students of Film Studies, the book fulfils its goal, as it combines the exposition of theory with clear examples, of both how the theory was previously applied and how it can be now employed to analyse the latest productions". (Pop-Zeitschrift, 9 October 2015)