Science Fiction Film

Examines one of the most enduring genres of Hollywood cinema: the science fiction film.

J. P. Telotte (Author)

9780521593724, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 August 2001

272 pages, 70 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.2 cm, 0.494 kg

"Telotte suggests how the science-fiction film reflects attitudes toward science, technology, and reason as they evolved over the course of the 20th century.... Telotte offers a historical overview that anchors his reasoned critical conclusions.... Valuable in any college or university library." Choice

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 animé. 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.

1. Introduction: the world of the science fiction film
2. Science fiction film: the critical context
3. A trajectory of American science fiction
4. The science fiction film as fantastic text: THX 1138
5. The science fiction film as marvelous text: Close Encounters of the Third Kind
6. The science fiction film as uncanny text: Robocop
7. Crossing genre boundaries/bound by fantasy: The Fly
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Films, cinema [APF]