Iron John goes to Hollywood in this confused and tedious
examination of the hunter and the hunted in six modern films: The
Manchurian Candidate, The Deer Hunter, Jaws, Blade Runner, and the
two Terminators. Rushing and Frentz, communications professors at
the University of Arkansas, seem interested in these films only as
a justification for a hodgepodge of pontifications on life, the
universe, and everything. Their thesis, insofar as it exists,
concerns the replacement of the archetypal Indian hunt by the
technological hunt. In their view, technology causes the hunter's
weapons to take on a life of their own until they eventually turn
against the hunter himself. This hopped-up restatement of the
Frankenstein stoW becomes, in Rushing and Frentz's hands, an almost
indigestible Joseph Campbell's soup of myth, Jungian analysis, and
Anthropology 101. As they proclaim, "If films are to a large extent
public dreams, then our role as critics is similar to that of the
depth analyst; to interpret how the film as collective dream
provides a picture of the cultural unconscious." So bewitched are
they by their voodoo film criticism that they invariably fail to
invoke essential authorities outside their narrow congeries. For
example, they discuss the idea of frontier at great length without
once mentioning its originator, Frederick Jackson Turner. But,
then, this book is only grudgingly about rational film analysis.
Rushing and Frentz seem much happier soap-boxing away about
spirituality, the men's movement, and their derivative panacea for
fin-de-siecle malaise - transmodernism (postmodernism made warm and
snuggly). But scatter enough critical darts, and you are bound to
hit something. The authors can claim credit for at least a handful
of good ideas or sound critical perceptions, particularly their
analysis of The Deer Hunter's deep mythic roots. In the end, the
only real monster to be found is the one Rushing and Frentz have so
carelessly brought to life. (Kirkus Reviews)
Part human, part machine, the cyborg is the hero of an increasingly
popular genre of American film and, as Janice H. Rushing and Thomas
S. Frentz so provocatively suggest, a cultural icon emblematic of
an emergent postmodern mythology. Using the cyborg film as a point
of departure, Rushing and Frentz examine how we rework Western
myths and initiation rites in the face of new technologies.
Through in-depth examinations of six representative films--"Jaws,
The Deer Hunter, The Manchurian Candidate, Blade Runner, The
Terminator," and "Terminator 2"--Rushing and Frentz track the
narrative's thread from the hunter to his technological nemesis,
demonstrating how each film represents an unfolding hunter myth.
For each movie, Rushing and Frentz show how uninitiated male
hunters slowly lose control over their weapons. In "Jaws," a 'soft'
man, dominated by technology, can re-acquire the heroic hunter
qualities he needs by teaming up with a 'savage' man and a
'technological' man. In doing so, he can still conquer the prey.
"The Manchurian Candidate" charts how technology can turn a human
into a weapon; "Blade Runner" perfects the artificial human with
its manufactured replicants who are "more than human"; and "The
Terminator" introduces a female hunter who leads humanity in its
struggle against technology.
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