The Tunnel at the End of the Light: Essays On Movies And Politics

Synopsis

"Shepard may be the best lesser-known film critic." —The New York Times Book Review The first book of nonfiction from one of our great fiction writers. Given that most Americans proudly consider themselves non-political, where do our notions of collective responsibility come from? Which self-deceptions, when considering ourselves as actors on the world stage, do we cling to most tenaciously? Why do we so stubbornly believe, for example, that our country always means well when intervening abroad? The Tunnel at the End of the Light argues that some of our most persistent and destructive assumptions, in that regard, might come from the movies. In these ten essays Jim Shepard weaves close readings of film with cultural criticism to explore the ways in which movies work so ubiquitously to reflect how Americans think and act. Whether assessing the “high-spirited glee of American ruthlessness” captured in GoodFellas, or finding in Lawrence of Arabia a “portrait of the lunatic serenity of our leaders’ conviction in the face of all evidence and their own lack of knowledge,” he explores how we enter into conversations with specific genres and films—Chinatown, The Third Man, and Badlands among others—in order to construct and refine our most cherished illusions about ourselves.

Copyright:

2017

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9781941040737

Related ISBNs:

9781941040720, 9781941040720

Publisher:

Tin House Books, LLC

Date of Addition:

08/30/18

Copyrighted By:

Jim Shepard

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Entertainment, Nonfiction, Art and Architecture, Literature and Fiction, Politics and Government

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.