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Movies under the Influence
About this book
A cultural history of the enduring relationship between film spectatorship and intoxicating substances
Movies under the Influence charts the entangled histories of moviegoing and mind-altering substances from early cinema through the psychedelic 1970s. Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece examines how the parallel trajectories of these two enduring aspects of American culture, linked by their ability to influence individual and collective consciousness, resulted in them being treated and regulated in similar ways. Rather than looking at representations of drug use within film, she regards cinema and intoxicants as kindred experiences of immersion that have been subject to corresponding forces of ideology and power.
Exploring the effects of intoxicants such as caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, and psychedelics on film spectatorship, Szczepaniak-Gillece demonstrates how American movie theaters sought to cultivate a dual identity, presenting themselves as both a place of wholesome entertainment and a shadowy zone of illicit behavior. Movies under the Influence highlights the various legislative, legal, and corporate powers that held sway over the darkened anonymity of theaters, locating the convergence of moviegoing and drug use as a site of mediation and social control in America.
As much as substances and cinema are points where power intervenes, they are also settings of potential transcendence, and Movies under the Influence maintains this paradox as a necessary component of American film history. Recontextualizing a wide range of films, from Hollywood to the avant-garde, this book examines the implicit relationship intoxicants suggest between mass media, spectatorship, and governmental regulation and provides a new angle from which to understand cinema’s lasting role in evolving American culture.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Archives under the Influence
- 1. Efficient and Erotic Pleasures: Cigarettes and Coffee and the Movies
- 2. Getting Drunk with the Movies: Exhibition and Prohibition
- 3. Drowsy Drugs: The Inside Dope on Dope
- 4. Escape from Selfhood: Psychedelic Exhibition and Spectatorship
- Conclusion: Magic Mirror in My Hand
- Notes
- Index
- Author Biography