Titanic: Anatomy of a Blockbuster

Description

Reviews

The contributors to this collection sift through the pre-release stories, merchandise tie-ins, advertising gimmicks, video offers, package tours and the like in order to make clear why Titanic turned out to be such a mammoth, international cultural phenomenon. . . . Keeping to the popular spirit of Titanic itself, the book is designed for a broad readership, and the contributors have made an effort to stay away from theoretical jargon. ― Times Literary Supplement

Anyone interested in accessible scholarly approaches to film and culture studies or a keener insight into why and how one film can resonate across borders at a particular moment in time will find this a stimulating and useful collection of essays. ― Journal of the American Studies Association of Texas

A thought-provoking collection of essays that bring contemporary cinema into serious focus. Titanic: Anatomy of a Blockbuster is wedded to movie history, to current cultural attitudes, and to its impact on viewers. Too bad someone wasnÆt around to do this for Gone With the Wind. — Jeanine Basinger, chair, Film Studies Program, Wesleyan University

If Titanic was not just another film, then this work, with its range of approaches and perspectives, is not just another anthology. — David Desser ― University of Illinois

The authors in this volume offer a first-rate examination of a question that has long vexed studies of media and popular culture: what makes a text resonate so extensively, so deeply with its audiences that it becomes a public sensation? Sandler and Studlar have assembled a collection of essays that vividly and persuasively demonstrate the complexity of forces acting on the reception of what became the biggest film blockbuster of them all. — Barbara Klinger ― author of Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk

Intriguing perspectives on a major cultural phenomenon. — Steven Biel, author of Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic” Disaster

About the Author

Kevin S. Sandler is a visiting assistant professor of English at Indiana University – Purdue University at Indianapolis and the editor of Reading the Rabbit: Explorations in Warner Bros. Animations (Rutgers University Press).

Gaylyn Studlar is the director of the Program in Film and Video Studies and a professor of film and English literature at the University of Michigan. She is the co-editor of Visions of the East: Orientalism in Film (Rutgers University Press) and the author of numerous books and articles on film and gender.