1st Edition
The American Dream and American Cinema in the Age of Trump From Object Relations to Social Relations
The American Dream and American Cinema in the Age of Trump uses both film theory and insights from object relations theory in order to examine how recent films address and reflect the state of the ‘American Dream’. This fascinating book looks at how the American Dream is one of the organising ideas of American cinema, and one of the most influential cultural outputs of the twenty-first century, at a time of internal crisis.
In an era characterised by populism, climate change and economic uncertainty, the book considers nine auteur films in how they illustrate the challenges of contemporary America. Graham S. Clarke and Ross Clarke present a bifocal perspective on some of the most well-received American films of recent years and how they relate to the American Dream in the context of the Trump presidency. For each of the nine films discussed, two different accounts are presented side by side so that each film is considered from an object relations psychoanalytic point of view (internal world) as well as a film and cultural theory perspective (external world). This unique approach is complemented by discussion of political and critical theory, providing a thorough and engaging analysis.
Challenging and insightful, The American Dream and American Cinema in the Age of Trump will be of great interest to scholars of cinema, popular culture, American studies and psychoanalytic studies.
Series Editor Preface
Caroline Bainbridge and Candida Yates
Introduction: The American dream and a binocular approach to analysing film
Chapter 1: External worlds
Chapter 2: Internal worlds
Chapter 3: The Revenant (Iñárritu, 2015)
Chapter 4: Roma (Cuaron, 2018)
Chapter 5: First Reformed ((The Old Guard) Schrader, 2017)
Chapter 6: Sicario (Villeneuve, 2015)
Chapter 7: Joker (Phillips, 2019)
Chapter 8: You Were Never Really Here (Ramsay, 2017)
Chapter 9: Widows (McQueen, 2018)
Chapter 10: Us (Peele, 2019)
Chapter 11: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (Tarantino, 2019)
Conclusion: Reflections on the USA presidential elections and the end of Trump
Epilogue: Nomadland (Zhao, 2020)
References
Biography
Graham S. Clarke is a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, UK. He has published books and papers on Ronald Fairbairn’s object relations-based psychology of dynamic structure and its application to the arts.
Ross Clarke is a screenwriter and director. He is a Lecturer in Film at Met Film School, UK. His films include Skid Row, a documentary about the acute homeless problem in downtown Los Angeles, the dramatic features The Birdcatcher and Desiree (aka The Chemist) and a football documentary about Brighton and Hove Albion FC. He is currently developing a film about Jorge Luis Borges based on the book by Jay Parini.
"Straddling academia, film-criticism and polemic, this book is a wake up call to filmmakers. In applying psychoanalytic theory, the authors make a serious contribution to the literature on how to make films and their grasp of how a medium they clearly adore has been quietly hijacked by populism is truly terrifying. The films dissected here are beautifully chosen to remind us of what cinema at its best is capable of." - Andy Paterson, Producer, The Girl with the Pearl Earring and The Railway Man
"The complex failure of the American Dream is both a painful reality and, for filmmakers, an artistic opening. In this wide-ranging and sophisticated study, the authors unpack a number of key films of the Trump era, finding an astonishingly vivid portrait of the American soul in a time of cultural and moral disarray. A brilliant and challenging book that deserves a wide audience."- Jay Parini, Novelist and Poet, The Last Station and Borges and Me
"In this bold, ambitious and provocative book that will challenge and engage filmmakers, filmgoers and theorists alike, Graham S. Clarke and Ross Clarke draw on a range of theoretical approaches, including psychoanalysis, film and critical theory and social relations to produce a blistering autopsy on the American Dream through the prism of nine key films from the Trump era."- Jonathan Hourigan, Programme Director, MA Screenwriting, University of Manchester
"Ever since Kracauer’s From Caligari to Hitler, film scholars have vividly described the ways in which the complex socio-political climate of an era finds indirect expression in its films. This new and compelling book by Graham and Ross Clarke casts a view beyond the usual national borders that mark such studies to provide a rich global perspective on recent cinema. Importantly, the authors show that, even as cinema changes in so many ways, this complex dynamic between films and their moment is as strong as ever." - Christian Keathley, Professor, Film and Media Culture, Middlebury College
"Where is the American Dream now, post Trump, in a pandemic? What is beyond the end of the end of history? This book looks at nine recent, successful and important films with a psychoanalytical analysis of character and a socio-political view on US society. A provocation, an unstable balance, that gets you thinking and arguing." - Paul Gallagher, Head of MA Screenwriting, Birkbeck College, London University
