Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements and Thanks
- Preface
- List of Illustrations
- 1 Introduction: The Formation of the Genre
- 2 Science Fiction Films in the 1950s
- 3 Spaced Out: Between the ‘Golden Years’
- 4 The Masculine Subject of Science Fiction in the 1980s Blockbuster Era
- 5 Gender Blending and the Feminine Subject in Science Fiction Film
- 6 Alien Others: Race and the Science Fiction Film
- 7 Generic Performance and Science Fiction Cinema
- 8 Conclusion: The Technology of Science Fiction Cinema
- Bibliography
- Film Cited
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements and Thanks
- Preface
- List of Illustrations
- 1 Introduction: The Formation of the Genre
- 2 Science Fiction Films in the 1950s
- 3 Spaced Out: Between the ‘Golden Years’
- 4 The Masculine Subject of Science Fiction in the 1980s Blockbuster Era
- 5 Gender Blending and the Feminine Subject in Science Fiction Film
- 6 Alien Others: Race and the Science Fiction Film
- 7 Generic Performance and Science Fiction Cinema
- 8 Conclusion: The Technology of Science Fiction Cinema
- Bibliography
- Film Cited
- Index
Summary
I must have been about ten years old when my parents proudly demonstrated their new tape recording machine. They had recorded a conversation with friends that had taken place a few days earlier. Of course they were primarily showing off the wonders of this technology to their children, but I distinctly recall that the discussion I heard revolved around their confusion over what was meant by the closing sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1968), a film that they had recently seen. This may have been the event that sparked my interest in the science fiction genre as I remember wishing I had seen the images that had caused so much debate. In my teenage years, without really knowing what I was looking for, I was drawn to the science fiction novels of John Wyndham, Doris Lessing and Arthur C. Clark. In retrospect I think that a form of quiet teenage rebellion had much to do with my interest in the genre at this time. Escaping from the ‘girly fantasies’ offered by the likes of Jackie magazine or the BBC television series Ballet Shoes, science fiction seemed to offer me a far more exciting and thought provoking landscape of opportunity. This quiet rebellion was further compounded when I managed to slip in to see my first ‘X’ film, Zardoz (dir. John Boorman, 1974), at barely fifteen years of age.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Science Fiction CinemaBetween Fantasy and Reality, pp. ix - xiPublisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2007