J. Hoberman
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“The Movie Industry’s Great Triumph”: J. Hoberman on Make My Day, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump
The narrative in which New Hollywood was wiped out by Jaws, Star Wars and the rise of the blockbuster that followed, paralleling the elections of Reagan and Thatcher in a retreat from the rebellions of the ‘60s and ‘70s, is a very familiar one. J. Hoberman has written a trilogy of books exploring the interwoven histories of the US and its cinema: The Dream Life: Movies, Media and the Mythology of the Sixties, Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War and now Make My Day: Movie Culture in the Age of Reagan. Drawing on his […]
by Steven Erickson on Jul 24, 2019 -
The Blue Velvet Project, #64
Second #3008, 50:08 Dorothy’s face fills the screen, leaving no room for thought. At this moment, there is no possibility of anything outside the frame. This may seem an odd moment, an odd frame, to re-introduce the power of ideology, for there seems to be nothing overtly “political” about this frame. And yet, Dorothy’s suffering here—rendered in a fashion-photography aesthetic—is utterly reactionary and in tune with a certain mid-1980s, Ronald Reagan wave of nostalgia. In their toxic, neural pathway altering chapter from Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) entitled “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” (an essay which remains the ultimate […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Jan 9, 2012
