Rock 'n' Roll Movies
David Sterritt (Author)
9780813590073
Hardback, published 18 December 2017
162 pages
17.8 x 11.4 x 1.5 cm, 0.22 kg
"The rock ‘n’ roll movie made its inauspicious debut in 1955 when a second-rate rockabilly record by Bill Haley and the Comets played ironically over the opening credits of the earnest melodrama, Blackboard Jungle. But as David Sterritt thoroughly and engagingly shows us, the movie industry soon produced a kaleidoscopic array of variations on the theme. Rock ‘n’ roll has dominated flashy fan pics, thoughtful documentaries, avant-garde obscurities, and bizarre animated films, but also monuments from auteurs like Martin Scorsese. They’re all here in this highly readable little book."
- Krin Gabbard (author of Jammin' at the Margins: Jazz and the American Cinema) "Brandishing expert chops in the rhythms of rock and the grammar of cinema, film critic David Sterritt is uniquely qualified to illuminate the beautiful music made by the merging of two great American art forms. Never less than fascinating, Rock ‘n’ Roll Movies offers an all-access backstage pass to the production backbeats and cultural meanings of a gleaming motion picture jukebox stacked with pop musicals, band biopics, star vehicles, concert films, rock docs, and mock-rock docs."
- Thomas Doherty (Brandeis University)
Rock ‘n’ Roll Movies presents an eclectic look at the many manifestations of rock in motion pictures, from teen-oriented B-movies to Hollywood blockbusters to avant-garde meditations to reverent biopics to animated shorts to performance documentaries. Acclaimed film critic David Sterritt considers the diverse ways that filmmakers have regarded rock ‘n’ roll, some cynically cashing in on its popularity and others responding to the music as sincere fans, some depicting rock as harmless fun and others representing it as an open challenge to mainstream norms.
Introduction 1
1 The Fabulous 1950s 6
2 The Swinging 1960s 23
3 The Slippery 1970s 73
4 From the 1980s to Now 113
Epilogue: The Hits Just Keep on Coming 118
Further Reading 121
Works Cited 123
Index 131
