Screen Saviors: Hollywood Fictions of Whiteness

Rating:
Summary: Incisive Minds at Work
Review: This is a neat and smart piece of work on American film. The authors have done their homework, their discussions of seminal Sixties and Seventies films is outstanding. Once you've read about what they have to say about the "Lethal Weapon" series, you'll never look at it the same. Which is a good thing for modern film is a carrier of all kinds of ideas, some of them are obvious, some are subliminal and it helps to know how to recognize both. Obviously the authors have spent a lot of time thinking about certain kinds of films and their intellectual impact. Their style is accessible, and though the terms they tend to use come from the very specialized worlds of contemporary academia, one grows to understand not only why they are used, but what they really mean. I recommend this book for specialists who need to reify their own critical radar as well as for movie buffs anxious to broaden their understanding of the subtexts behind the films they have grown to love.