ABSTRACT

In cinema studies today, rarely do we find a direct investigation into the culture of capitalism and how it has been refracted and fabricated in global cinema production under neoliberalism. However, the current economic crisis and the subsequent Wall Street bailout in 2008 have brought about a worldwide skepticism regarding the last four decades of economic restructuring and the culture that has accompanied it. In this edited volume, an international ensemble of scholars looks at neoliberalism, both as culture and political economy, in the various cinemas of the world. In essays encompassing the cinemas of Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the United States the authors outline how the culture and subjectivities engendered by neoliberalism have been variously performed, contested, and reinforced in these cinemas. The premise of this book is that the cultural and economic logic of neoliberalism, i.e., the radical financialization and market-driven calculations, of all facets of society are symptoms best understood by Marxist theory and its analysis of the central antagonisms and contradictions of capital. Taking a variety of approaches, ranging from political economy, ideological critique, the intersection of aesthetics and politics, social history and critical-cultural theory, this volume offers a fresh, broad-based Marxist analysis of contemporary film/media. Topics include: the global albeit antagonistic nature of neoliberal culture; the search for a new aesthetic and documentary language; the contestation between labor and capital in cultural producion; the political economy of hollywood, and questions of gender, sexuality, and the nation state in relation to neoliberalism.

chapter |16 pages

Introduction

Neoliberalism and Global Cinema:Subjectivities, Publics, and New Forms of Resistance

part 1|59 pages

Hollywood and Global Dominance

chapter 1|19 pages

“For a Better Deal, Harass Your Governor!”

Neoliberalism and Hollywood

chapter 2|21 pages

A Legacy of Neoliberalism

Patterns in Media Conglomeration

part 2|56 pages

Latin American

chapter 4|16 pages

Cuban cinema

A Case of Accelerated Underdevelopment

chapter 5|18 pages

Politics and Privatization in Peruvian Cinema

Grupo Chaski's Aesthetics of Survival

chapter 6|20 pages

Form, Politics, and Culture

A Case Study of The Take, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, and Listen to Venezuela

part III|173 pages

Asia

chapter III 7|22 pages

Market Socialism and Its Discontent*

Jia Zhangke's Cinematic Narrative of China's Transition in the Age of Global Capital

chapter III 8|23 pages

“Leitmotif”

State, Market, and Postsocialist Film Industry under Neoliberal Globalization

chapter III 9|17 pages

From Exploitation to Playful Exploits

The Rise of Collectives and the Redefinition of Labor, Life, and Representation in Neoliberal Japan

chapter III 10|20 pages

The Underdevelopment of Development

Neoliberalism and the Crisis of Bourgeois Individualism

chapter III 11|22 pages

Fragments of Labor

Neoliberal Attitudes and Architectures in Contemporary South Korean Cinema

chapter III 12|22 pages

Mainlandization and Neoliberalism with Postcolonial and Chinese Characteristics

Challenges for the Hong Kong Film Industry

chapter III 13|18 pages

Neoliberalism and Authoritarianism in Singaporean Cinema

A Case Study of Perth

chapter III 14|27 pages

Gambling on Life and Death

Neoliberal Rationality and the Films of Jeffrey Jeturian

part IV|40 pages

Africa and Europe

chapter IV 16|19 pages

French Cinema

Counter-Model, Cultural Exception, Resistances