Out of Site

Extensively researched in visual arts and literature, landscape still remains unexplored territory in film studies. Out of Site: Landscape and Cultural Reflexivity in New Hollywood Cinema 1969-1974 examines the rich possibilities of using landscape to open up new perspectives on the interrelations between popular film, fine arts and cultural identity. Departing from a discussion on the historical role landscape has played in cultural practices of selfrepresentation and self-definition, Out of Site shows how landscape can be turned against itself to express adversary and antagonistic views of national myths and media. In a number of close readings of key films from the late sixties and early seventies, a period of American filmmaking marked by an impulse for retrospection and self-examination, the book offers a variety of case studies of how landscape can be advanced to raise questions on the formation of narratives, identities and memories - and on our own habits of reading. With its interdisciplinary scope, Out of Site will interest students and scholars from a wide array of fields in cultural studies, aesthetics and media.