Course Description for American Film in Context: 1950s--1960s

Description: This course outlines the Hollywood “transitional” years by analyzing its rich generic output—late noir, Cold War science fiction, conceptual western, melodrama, realism, spectacle, and exploitation—within its rich historical and cultural context—Cold War paranoia, Korean and Vietnam Wars, television, drive-ins, teenagers, motorcycle gangs, the Civil Rights Movement, the Sexual Revolution, conspicuous consumption, and poverty.