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Hollywood Aesthetic
Todd Berliner
Published in print: 2017 Published Online: April Publisher: Oxford University Press
2017 DOI: 10.1093/
ISBN: 9780190658748 eISBN: 9780190658786 acprof:oso/9780190658748.001.0001
Item type: book
Hollywood makes the most widely successful pleasure-giving artworks

the world has ever known. The American film industry operates under
the assumption that pleasurable aesthetic experiences, among large
populations, translate into box office success. More than any other
historical mode of art, Hollywood has systematized the delivery of
aesthetic pleasure, packaging and selling it on a mass scale. If the
Hollywood film industry succeeds in delivering aesthetic pleasure
both routinely and, at times, in an outstanding way, then we should
ultimately regard Hollywood cinema as an artistic achievement, not
merely a commercial success. Hollywood Aesthetic accounts for the
chief attraction of Hollywood cinema worldwide: its entertainment
value. The book addresses four fundamental components of Hollywoods
aesthetic design: narrative, style, ideology, and genre. Grounded in
film history and in the psychological and philosophical literature in
aesthetics, the book explains: (1) the intrinsic properties characteristic
of Hollywood cinema that induce aesthetic pleasure; (2) the cognitive
and affective processes, sparked by Hollywood movies, that become
engaged during aesthetic pleasure; and (3) the exhilarated aesthetic
experiences afforded by an array of persistently entertaining Hollywood
movies. Offering a comprehensive appraisal of the capacity of Hollywood
cinema to provide aesthetic pleasure, the book sets out to explain how
Hollywood creates, for masses of people, some of their most exhilarating
experiences of art.
Work in Hand
Aileen Douglas
2017 DOI: 10.1093/
Item type: book
Page 1 of 6
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Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph
in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy).date: 02 May 2017
Work in Hand: Script, Print, and Writing, 16901840 argues that between
the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries manual writing
was a dynamic technology. It examines script in relation to becoming
a writer; in constructions of the author; and in emerging ideas of the
human. Revising views of print as displacing script, Work in Hand argues
that print reproduced script, print generated script, and print shaped
understandings of script. In this, the double nature of print, as both
moveable type and rolling press, is crucial. During this period, the shapes
of letters changed as the multiple hands of the early modern period
gave way to English round hand; the denial of writing to the labouring
classes was slowly replaced by acceptance of the desirability of universal
writing; understandings of script in relation to copying and discipline
came to be accompanied by ideas of the autograph. The work begins
by surveying representations of script in letterpress and engraving. It
discusses initiation into writing in relation to the copybooks of English
writing masters, and in the context of colonial pedagogy in Ireland and
India. The middle chapters discuss the physical work of writing, the
material dimensions of script, and the autograph, in constructions of
the author in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and
in relation to Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, William Blake, Isaac
DIsraeli, and Maria Edgeworth. The final chapter considers the emerging
association of script with ideas of the human in the work of the Methodist
preacher Joseph Barker.
Conclusion
Todd Berliner
in Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema

2017 DOI: 10.1093/
Item type: chapter
IT IS FITTING THAT WE END OUR INVESTIGATION OF HOLLYWOOD

AESthetics with the western, Hollywoods most enduring, emblematic,
and historically popular genre. Whenever the western seems finally
depleted of its ability to interest an audience, filmmakers manage to
mine interesting new material from it. The genres potential for novelty
and complexity seems, after all these years, inexhaustible. The western
is so reliable that filmmakers have found they could jump up and down
on it, even sledgehammer its foundational myths, without cracking
its structure. Filmmaker Jean Renoir said, The marvelous thing about
Westerns is that theyre all the same movie. That gives a director
unlimited freedom....
Page 2 of 6
The Hollywood Aesthetic
Todd Berliner

2017 DOI: 10.1093/
Item type: chapter
Chapter 1 explains Hollywoods general principles for creating aesthetic

pleasure for mass audiences. The chapter introduces the books two
main theses: (1) Hollywood cinema targets an area, between boredom
and confusion, that is optimally pleasing for mass audiences. It seeks to
offer enough cognitive challenge to sustain aesthetic interest but not so
much that it would jeopardize a films hedonic value or cause average
spectators to give up the search for understanding. (2) Many of the
Hollywood films that offer exhilarating aesthetic experiences beyond a
single encounter and over extended periods operate near the boundaries
of classicism, veering into areas of novelty and complexity that more
typical Hollywood films avoid; however, they do so without sacrificing
a mass audiences ability to cope with the challenge. Such films take
risks, and exhilarated pleasure results when they seem on the verge of
overburdening or displeasing spectators in some bold and extraordinary
way.
Classicism and Deviation in His Girl Friday and Double

Indemnity
Todd Berliner

2017 DOI: 10.1093/
Item type: chapter
Chapter 2 illustrates an aesthetically productive balance between

easy understanding and cognitive challenge in classical Hollywood
cinema with extended analyses of His Girl Friday and Double Indemnity.
These films combine classical narrative, stylistic, ideological, and genre
properties with artistic devices that complicate formal patterning and
thwart audience expectations.
Page 3 of 6
Hollywood Storytelling
Todd Berliner

2017 DOI: 10.1093/
Item type: chapter
Chapter 3 studies the aesthetic pleasures of Hollywood cinemas

approach to storytelling. It examines the cognitive processes at work
when a film cues spectators to construct a films story in their minds,
and it explains the ways in which Hollywood movies both facilitate
and complicate the spectators process of story construction. The
chapter offers a new theory of Hollywood storytelling aesthetics
illustrated with examples from whodunits, screwball comedies, twist
films, and mysteriesthat film viewers take pleasure not just in narrative
unity and easy understanding, as previous scholars have argued,
but also in narrative disunity and cognitive challenge. With support
from experimental psychology, the chapter argues that viewers enjoy
narratives that stimulate moments of free association, insight, and
incongruity-resolution.
Finding the Fit

Todd Berliner

2017 DOI: 10.1093/
Item type: chapter
Chapter 4 illustrates the theory of narration presented in the previous

chapter, offering an extended analysis of an unusual narrative pattern in
Red River, which violates Hollywoods cardinal rules regarding narrative
unity, probability, causality, and story logic. Disunity in this classical
Hollywood narrative adds variety to our filmgoing experience; stimulates
our imagination, curiosity, and creative problem-solving processes; and
liberates our thinking from the burdens and limitations of good sense.
Page 4 of 6
Hollywood Style
Todd Berliner

2017 DOI: 10.1093/
Item type: chapter
Chapter 5 investigates the aesthetic pleasures of Hollywoods stylistic

norms, as well as pleasures afforded by a handful of noteworthy stylistic
deviations. The chapter examines the ways in which Hollywood film
style both supports a films storytelling function (by enhancing clarity
and expressiveness) and offers aesthetic pleasures independent of
storytelling (decoration and stylistic harmony). A films style may also
compete with story (e.g., Touch of Evil), with genre (Leave Her to
Heaven), or even with itself (Goodfellas) for control of a films mood and
meaning. Such stylistically dissonant works inspire cognitive play as we
adjust to stylistic cues that harbor disparate attitudes and meanings.
Raging Bulls Stylistic Dissonance

Todd Berliner

2017 DOI: 10.1093/
Item type: chapter
Illustrating some of the points made in chapter 5, chapter 6 offers

an extended analysis of some complex tendencies in Raging Bulls
cinematography, editing, and sound devices. The film tests the limits of
the classical Hollywood style and sometimes crosses over into avant-
garde practice. Raging Bull offers an illustrative case study of the
boundaries of Hollywoods stylistic systems.
Ideology, Emotion, and Aesthetic Pleasure

Todd Berliner

2017 DOI: 10.1093/
Item type: chapter
Page 5 of 6
Chapter 7 examines the ways in which a films ideological properties
contribute to aesthetic pleasure when they intensify, or when they
complicate, viewers cognitive and affective responses. The chapter
demonstrates the ways in which the ideology of a Hollywood film guides
our beliefs, values, and emotional responses. In ideologically unified
Hollywood films, such as Die Hard, Independence Day, Pickup on South
Street, and Casablanca, narrative and stylistic devices concentrate our
beliefs, values, and emotional responses, offering us a purer experience
than we can find in most real-life situations. By contrast, ideologically
complicated Hollywood films, such as Chinatown, The Third Man, Invasion
of the Body Snatchers, The Last Temptation of Christ, and The Dark
Knight, advance their worldviews in a novel, ambiguous, or peculiar way,
upsetting our appraisals of events and characters and complicating our
intellectual and emotional experiences.
Page 6 of 6

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Oxford Scholarship Online

You are looking at 1-10 of 25 items for: keywords : stasis litfil

Hollywood makes the most widely successful pleasure-giving artworks

in Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema

IT IS FITTING THAT WE END OUR INVESTIGATION OF HOLLYWOOD

in Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema

Chapter 1 explains Hollywoods general principles for creating aesthetic

Classicism and Deviation in His Girl Friday and Double

in Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema

Chapter 2 illustrates an aesthetically productive balance between

in Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema

Chapter 3 studies the aesthetic pleasures of Hollywood cinemas

Finding the Fit

in Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema

Chapter 4 illustrates the theory of narration presented in the previous

in Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema

Chapter 5 investigates the aesthetic pleasures of Hollywoods stylistic

Raging Bulls Stylistic Dissonance

in Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema

Illustrating some of the points made in chapter 5, chapter 6 offers

Ideology, Emotion, and Aesthetic Pleasure

in Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema

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