Science fiction film

Cambridge University Press

2001

xiii, 254 p.

Genres in American cinema

Select filmography of the American science fiction film: p. 225-244.

9780521593724

Contents: The world of the science fiction film -- Science fiction film: the critical context -- A trajectory of the American science fiction film -- The science fiction film as fantastic text: THX 1138 -- The science fiction film as marvelous text: Close encounters of the third kind -- The science fiction film as uncanny text: RoboCop -- Crossing genre boundaries/bound by fantasy: The fly (1986) -- A note on boundaries.

Science fiction film examines one of the most enduring and popular genres of Hollywood cinema, suggesting how the science fiction film reflects attitudes toward science, technology, and reason as they have evolved in American culture over the course of the twentieth century. J.P. Telotte provides a survey of science fiction film criticism, emphasizing humanist, psychological, ideological, feminist, and postmodern critiques. He also sketches a history of the genre, from its earliest literary manifestations to the present, while touching on and comparing it to pulp fiction, early television science fiction, and Japanese anime. Telotte offers in-depth readings of three key films: Robocop, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and THX 1138, each of which typifies a particular form of science fiction fantasy. Challenging the boundaries usually seen between high and low culture, literature and film, Science fiction film reasserts the central role of fantasy in popular films, even those concerned with reason, science, and technology.

Английский