American Cinema/American Culture
by John Belton
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Book Summary Information
Author: John BeltonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2004-08-10
ISBN: 0072886277
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
Book Reviews of American Cinema/American Culture
Book Review: Those decent reviews must be by the text's author...
Summary: 1 Stars
Halfway through my third year of college, this is the worst textbook I have ever had for any class. It's the first time that the choice of text actually makes me wish I hadn't taken the class. The material is very fascinating, but the book is written very, very poorly. I encourage anyone who has this is as a required text to consider registering for a different class.
At least half of the text is simply summarizing movies, and that's the biggest flaw. If you haven't seen these movies it can, at times, be very difficult to follow. I honestly cannot fathom any possible reason for these summaries, other than to spoil the plot and outcome of many great films. The few decent pages in this book are due to the author lacking consistency -- on occasion he slips and goes a page or two without summarizing the plot of a film, and on those rare occasions the reader may actually learn something, but don't count on it happening too often.
This is the first and only occasion in which I wish I wouldn't have taken a class based solely on the weakness of the text.
Summary of American Cinema/American Culture
Ideal for Introduction to American Cinema courses, American Film History courses, and Introductory Film Appreciation courses focused on American Film, this text offers a cultural examination of the American movie-making industry, with particular attention paid to the economic and aesthetic institution of Hollywood.General Books
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