In this fascinating work, K. Stephen Prince sheds fresh light on both the history of the Robert Charles riots and the practice of history-writing itself. He reveals evidence of intentional erasures, both in the ways the riot and its aftermath were chronicled and in the ways stories were silenced or purposefully obscured.
"Movie audiences know exactly how the world will end because popular cinema has never stopped rehearsing the apocalypse. In this clear, concise account, Stephen Prince illuminates the appeal of apocalypse cinema, its roots in literary and religious tradition, its presence throughout cinema history, and the existential fears and anxieties that motivate it. In four elegant chapters, Prince examines the key threats to human existence that bring about world's end - collisions with giant asteroids, invasions by planet-devouring aliens, nuclear war, global warming and deadly pandemics. Touching on films ranging from The End of the World (1916), The Rapture (1991), Signs (2002), Armageddon (1998), Deep Impact (1998), Melancholia (2011), These Final Hours (2015), The War of the Worlds (1953), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Independence Day (1996), Annihilation (2018), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and many more, Apocalypse Cinema shows how apocalypse movies explore fundamental questions of existence that never go out of fashion"-- Provided by publisher
Facing an economic crisis in the 1980s, the Hollywood moved to control the ancillary markets of videotape, video disk and pay-cable. The studios found themselves targeted for acquisition by global media and communications companies. This book examines the transformation that took Hollywood from the production of theatrical film to media software.
Considers how new technologies have revolutionized the medium, while investigating the continuities that might remain from filmmaking's analogue era. In the process, this book raises provocative questions about the status of realism in a pixel-generated digital medium whose scenes often defy the laws of physics.