Quality Hollywood: Markers of Distinction in Contemporary Studio Film

About the Author

Geoff King is Professor of Film Studies at Brunel University London, UK. He is author of numerous books, including pioneering studies of American independent and Indiewood cinemas. His most recent publications are Quality Hollywood: Markers of Distinction in Contemporary Studio Film (2016) and Positioning Art Cinema: Film and Cultural Value (2019).

Product Description

What defines 'quality' in contemporary Hollywood film? Although often seen as inhospitable to such work, the studios of the blockbuster-franchise era continue to produce features that make claims to higher status. Films such as The Social Network, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Mystic River are marked as distinctive from the mainstream norm. But how exactly, and how are such qualities mixed with more familiar Hollywood ingredients, as found in larger doses in other examples such as Blood Diamond and the blockbuster-scale Inception?

Quality Hollywood is the first book to address these issues, featuring close analysis of case study films, critical responses and the wider notions of cultural value on which these draw. Geoff King argues that such films retain a presence as a minority strand of studio output. The reasons for this combine factors relating to economics, the power of certain filmmakers and Hollywood's investment in its own prestige.