L'America e il cinema

by Michael Wood, Ettore Capriolo (Translator)

'America in the Movies is a brilliant romp through the fertile field of Hollywood's vision of America in the 1940s and 50s. With geniality and insight, Michael Wood exposes the tangle of fantasy and reality in the waning days of the studio system.' -- Leo Braudy, University of Southern California

178 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Michael Wood born in Lincoln, England, is the Charles Barnwell Straut Class of 1923 Professor of English and Professor of comparative literature at Princeton University. He is an alumnus of St John's College, Cambridge.

Prior to teaching to Princeton, he taught at Columbia University, and at the University of Exeter in Devon, England.

He was Director of the Gauss Seminars in Criticism at Princeton from 1995-2001, and chaired Princeton's English department from 1998 to 2004. He writes regularly for The New York Review of Books and on film for the London Review of Books.

Reviews

[Monika Ciem · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only meant to read the introduction, but Wood has such an interesting, engaging and plainly fun way of writing that I kept on. This is primarily theory; however, it is so in such a light-hearted way that to hardcore academics it might not always entirely agree (i.e. these are the expectations I was given by my professor when she sent me here). Wood's treatment of different myths of Hollywood movies in mostly the 30s and 40s does not only cover some of the most famous films and thus ensures that I feel addressed and, more importantly, not lost, but also discusses various cultural aspects that are reflected in and in turn influenced by Hollywood movies. I enjoyed his selection of themes, even if I am somehow left wishing for more precise or in-depth discussion, particularly with regard to how they relate to specific historical and cultural events in the US (though I am aware that this was not meant to be a focus, as he states in the introductory chapter).
To finish off, I would like to give two examples of the at times laugh-out-loud prose in which this book is written: "Reality is dark and awful, we reckon, and Hollywood picks it up only with gloved hands, then puts it down quickly and runs off into the sunset." And, talking about a musical performance on skates by Gene Kelly, "it becomes a slightly alarming affair of excessive glides and tilts and some very fancy dueling with the law of gravity and the tempo of the music."

[Marion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, it's academic, but Wood is a truly engaging writer and at times can be sharp as hell. That is, I'd be laughing at a sneaky one-liner and then scurrying to copy down an insightful paragraph. It's a traipse through themes in Hollywood movies from roughly 1938 to 1963 from a outsider's (British perspective). Fascinating spins on what was going on in movies and how that reflected on the American people and the US as a country.