| Description |
1 online resource (xii, 258 pages) |
| Contents |
Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Mad to be saved -- History, theory and culture: the beat generation meets the lonely crowd -- Literature, photography, film: from American jukebox to biologic theater -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index |
| Summary |
"Film critic David Sterritt presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the Beat Generation, its intersections with mainstream and experimental film, and the interactions of all of these with American society and the culture of the '50s. Examining American society in the '50s, Sterritt balances the Beat countercultural goal of rebellion through both artistic creation and everyday behavior against the mainstream values of conformity and conservatism, growing worry over cold-war hostilities, and the "rat race" toward material success." "After an introductory overview of the Beat Generation, its history, its antecedents and its influences, Sterritt shows the importance of "visual thinking" in the lives and works of major Beat authors, most notably Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. He turns to Mikhail Bakhtin's dialogic theory to portray the Beat writers - who were inspired by jazz and other liberating influences - as carnivalesque rebels against what they perceived as a rigid and stifling social order." "Showing the Beats as social critics, Sterritt looks at the work of '50s photographers Robert Frank and William Klein; the attack against Beat culture in the pictures and prose of Life magazine; and the counterattack in Frank's film Pull My Daisy, featuring key Beat personalities. He further explores expressions of rebelliousness in film noir, the melodramas of director Douglas Sirk, and other Hollywood films." "Finally, Sterritt shows the changing attitudes toward the Beat sensibility in Beat-related Hollywood movies like A Bucket of Blood and The Beat Generation; television programs like Route 66 and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, nonstudio films like John Cassavetes's improvisational Shadows and Shirley Clarke's experimental The Connection; and radically avant-garde works by such doggedly independent screen artists as Stan Brakhage, Ron Rice, Bruce Connor, and Ken Jacobs, drawing connections between their achievements and the most subversive products of their Beat contemporaries."--Jacket |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-249) and index |
| Notes |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL |
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English |
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digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL |
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Print version record |
| Subject |
Beats (Persons)
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Motion pictures and literature -- United States -- History -- 20th century
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Literature and society -- United States -- History -- 20th century
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American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism
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Experimental films -- United States -- History and criticism
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Motion pictures -- United States -- History
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Motion pictures -- United States -- History -- 20th century
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Beat generation.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
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American literature
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Beats (Persons)
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Experimental films
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Literature and society
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Motion pictures
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Motion pictures and literature
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United States
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| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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History
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| LC no. |
97043376 |
| ISBN |
0585029733 |
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9780585029733 |
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