Table of Contents

Visionary Paranoia; Film Politics; The Dark Vision of Film Noir; The Culture of Resistance in the Films of the 1960s; ""You may think you know what's going on here""; Family Values? - The View from Reagan's Closet; ""She was bad news"" - Male Paranoia and Femme Fatales; Women and Sexual Paranoia; Bad Cops and their Politics; From Assassination to Surveillance Society.

Reviews

Click here to read an online review at http: //www.cercles.com."An unquestionably fresh addition to film and political theory. . . Deserves praise for its imaginative appraisal of Americans' current fascination with and fears about the power of political authority. Moreover, by so comprehensively examining his topic from multiple angles, Pratt is able to successfully extricate meaning from a phenomenon as complex and contradictory as the American political psyche. The cultural-studies approach frequently gets a bad rap, but here Pratt has demonstrated its potential for illuminating the interdependency of art and life--or, in this case, are and lies."--Cineaste"A useful overview of the general themes of conspiracy and paranoia in many American films of the 1940s, 1960s, and beyond. . . ."--Journal of American History"Pratt provides an overview and illustration of how the American public's view of government and society has become darker and more suspicious in the postwar era. . . . well written and well argued."--Library Journal

"An imaginative and original book that shows the terrible price we pay in lost possibilities when we allow a culture of fear to shape the political practice and the social imagination."--George Lipsitz, author of American Studies in a Moment of Danger"Conspiracy and paranoia are dominant motifs of Hollywood films that explore the dark side of American life. Pratt engages these films, disclosing that they provide important insights into the modes of power that have haunted postwar America."--Douglas Kellner, author of Media Culture and Television and the Crisis of Democracy"In this intriguing and wide-ranging study, Pratt offers a provocative analysis of the way movies have insightfully addressed our fears about powerful agents gaining control over our lives."--Robert Brent Toplin, editor of Oliver Stone's USA