As America fractured, so did the monolithic audience. We became a nation of micro-demographics, catered to by the multiplex, the home video market, and cable television, all new developments that helped finance an enormous boom in film production. Hiding in the shadow cast by the super-blockbuster was an era of surprising variety. The 1980s was the decade of Top Gun and E.T., but it was also the decade of John Sayles, the Coen brothers, David Lynch, Michael Mann, and other idiosyncratic directors. Many of these directors were stylists rather than narrative realists, embracing non-naturalistic
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