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The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema

  • Martin Holtz

    Martin Holtz earned an MA and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Greifswald in Germany. He has published two books: American Cinema in Transition: The Western in New Hollywood and Hollywood Now (2011) and Constructions of Agency in American Literature on the War of Independence: War as Action, 1775 – 1860 (2019). He is an associated lecturer at the University of Graz in Austria.
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Narratives of Confinement in American Popular Culture
This chapter is in the book Narratives of Confinement in American Popular Culture

Abstract

New Hollywood cinema, stretching roughly from 1967 to the late 1970s, is often regarded as one of the most artistically inspired and innovative periods in American film history. As such, it is also often associated with a countercultural energy, positioning itself against restricting norms not just in terms of filmic conventions but also politically in its embrace of anti-establishment values and social criticism. It is no wonder, then, that many American films from the period utilize the prison and other institutions of confinement as an allegorical setting in which to express and negotiate a discourse of rebellion against an oppressive system. While, on the surface, this scenario appears clear-cut in terms of its politics, a closer analysis of three of the most prominent films about confinement, Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Longest Yard (1974), and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), reveals a remarkable ideological ambivalence in their evocation of left-wing protest culture which is undercut by clinging to conservative conventions. While the films attack the nation’s self-congratulatory narrative of functioning justice, fairness, and democratic principles by pointing out hypocrisy and corruption, the values they embrace follow a classical agenda of white masculine heroics characterized by rugged individualism, plucky initiative, pragmatic teamwork, and a competitive spirit.

Abstract

New Hollywood cinema, stretching roughly from 1967 to the late 1970s, is often regarded as one of the most artistically inspired and innovative periods in American film history. As such, it is also often associated with a countercultural energy, positioning itself against restricting norms not just in terms of filmic conventions but also politically in its embrace of anti-establishment values and social criticism. It is no wonder, then, that many American films from the period utilize the prison and other institutions of confinement as an allegorical setting in which to express and negotiate a discourse of rebellion against an oppressive system. While, on the surface, this scenario appears clear-cut in terms of its politics, a closer analysis of three of the most prominent films about confinement, Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Longest Yard (1974), and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), reveals a remarkable ideological ambivalence in their evocation of left-wing protest culture which is undercut by clinging to conservative conventions. While the films attack the nation’s self-congratulatory narrative of functioning justice, fairness, and democratic principles by pointing out hypocrisy and corruption, the values they embrace follow a classical agenda of white masculine heroics characterized by rugged individualism, plucky initiative, pragmatic teamwork, and a competitive spirit.

Chapters in this book

  1. Acknowledgments 5
  2. Table of Contents 7
  3. Confinement Studies in American Popular Culture 1
  4. Part I: Confinement Narratives on the Screen
  5. Cinema and TV Series
  6. The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema 15
  7. Trapped in Bluebeard’s Castle: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a Self-Contradictory Story of Empowerment and Imprisonment 31
  8. (Dis)‌ableing the Confinement: Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God 47
  9. Transformative Power of Confinement and Subversion of Identity in The Experiment (2010) 63
  10. “Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)‌urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows 87
  11. Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma 103
  12. Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid 117
  13. Documentaries
  14. Incarceration Documentaries after the Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography 133
  15. Dream in Place: Understanding Confinement through the Tactics of Fiction in Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack 151
  16. Part II: Confinement Narratives from/about American Prisons
  17. Claudia Jones and Angela Davis: Literature in Confinement 171
  18. Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur 185
  19. Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison 201
  20. Our Time on the Rock: Narrating Voluntary Confinement in Tommy Orange’s There There 217
  21. “Have You Ever Seen a More Focused Killing Machine?” The Extreme Spectacle of Carceral Punishment in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars 235
  22. Part III: Confinement Narratives within Performances
  23. Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore 253
  24. In The Devil's Grip: Competing Narratives of Confinement in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Opera 269
  25. Index
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111474137-003

Chapters in this book

  1. Acknowledgments 5
  2. Table of Contents 7
  3. Confinement Studies in American Popular Culture 1
  4. Part I: Confinement Narratives on the Screen
  5. Cinema and TV Series
  6. The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema 15
  7. Trapped in Bluebeard’s Castle: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a Self-Contradictory Story of Empowerment and Imprisonment 31
  8. (Dis)‌ableing the Confinement: Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God 47
  9. Transformative Power of Confinement and Subversion of Identity in The Experiment (2010) 63
  10. “Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)‌urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows 87
  11. Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma 103
  12. Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid 117
  13. Documentaries
  14. Incarceration Documentaries after the Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography 133
  15. Dream in Place: Understanding Confinement through the Tactics of Fiction in Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack 151
  16. Part II: Confinement Narratives from/about American Prisons
  17. Claudia Jones and Angela Davis: Literature in Confinement 171
  18. Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur 185
  19. Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison 201
  20. Our Time on the Rock: Narrating Voluntary Confinement in Tommy Orange’s There There 217
  21. “Have You Ever Seen a More Focused Killing Machine?” The Extreme Spectacle of Carceral Punishment in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars 235
  22. Part III: Confinement Narratives within Performances
  23. Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore 253
  24. In The Devil's Grip: Competing Narratives of Confinement in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Opera 269
  25. Index
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