http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/hollywood+american_history PennTags Feed http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/voyager/4150 http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/voyager/4150 <div>Cameron, Kenneth M., 1931-. America on film : Hollywood and American history / Kenneth M. Cameron. [0826410332 (hardcover : alk. paper)] New York : Continuum, 1997. <br />Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1995.9.H5 C36 1997</div><div><br />In this book Kenneth Cameron goes through the 20^th century, attempting to create an appropriate historical and cultural context for the film produced in each decade.&nbsp; Of particular interest in the chapter entitlted &ldquo;1940-49: Good War, New World.&rdquo;&nbsp; Cameron claims that despite war, the forties produced a wide variety of films that were difficult to analyze.&nbsp; Some generalizations he was able to draw were between films made before 1942 and those after 1946.&nbsp; Particularly, the movies made after 1946 and the end of the war tended to be more forward-looking and socially contemplative.&nbsp; Cameron sites <em>The Beginning or the End? </em>as a film that confonts the moral issues of the day, particularly the decision to drop the atomic bomb and its implications.&nbsp; He also praises <em>Pride of the Marines</em> for counterring the prevailing attitude of portraying war as glorious.&nbsp; Though limited by the Production Code, it attempted to reveal the harsh realities of war, in addition to difficult subject of a returning veteran who suffered an injury that made him blind.</div><div><br />Though <em>The Best Years of Our Lives</em> is never explicitly mentioned in the chapter, one can easily see how it fits into Cameron&rsquo;s perception of what films were trying to do after the war.&nbsp; Rather than a nostalgic and glorious rendition of the return of war heroes, it examines the lives of three more or less ordinary men, who in their diverstity represent the socio-economic and age spectrum.&nbsp; The film concerns itself not with their heroes&rsquo; reception, but with the difficulties and harsh realities to adjusting to life at home, accompanied by alcoholism, adultery, ostracism, and alienation.&nbsp; It is also a socially conscious film, containing cultural critique and commentary in its exploration of questions such, should we have dropped the bomb?, or, did we really fight the good war?&nbsp; Though patriotic in nature, the film does not shy away from interjecting the varying ideas of Americans regarding the war.&nbsp; <br /><br /></div>