Recycled Culture in Contemporary Art and Film: The Uses of Nostalgia

Description

The reuse of images, plots and genres from film history has become prominent in contemporary culture. In this study, Vera Dika explores this phenomenon from a broad range of critical perspectives, examining works of art and film that resist the pull of the past. Dika provides an in-depth analysis of works in several media, including performance, photography, Punk film, and examples from mainstream American and European cinema. Proclaiming the renewed importance of the image and of genre, she investigates works as diverse as Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills, Amos Poe's The Foreigner, Terence Malick's Badlands, and Francis Ford Coppola's One from the Heart. Her study positions avant-garde art work within the context of contemporary mainstream film practice, as well as in relationship to their historical moment. Frontmatter i-viii Contents ix-x Acknowledgments xi-xii 1 - The Returned Image 1-23 2 - Art and Film: New York City in the Late 1970s 24-54 3 - Returned Genres: The Dream Has Ended 55-88 4 - Reconsidering the Nostalgia Film 89-121 5 - A Return to the 1950s: The Dangers in Utopia 122-155 6 - Coppola and Scorsese: Authorial Views 156-196 7 - To Destroy the Sign 197-224 Notes 225-230 Bibliography 231-236 Index 237-241