Leighton Grist Fascism and Millennial American Cinema

Annotation

This book examines a spate of American films released around the turn of the millennium that differently address the actuality or possibility of domestic fascism within the USA. The films discussed span a diversity of forms, genres and production practices, and encompass low- and medium-budget studio and independent releases (such as American History X, Stir of Echoes and The Believer), star and/or auteur vehicles (such as The Siege, Fight Club and American Beauty), and high-budget, high-concept science-fiction films and franchises (such as Starship Troopers, Minority Report, the Matrix and X-Men trilogies and the Star Wars prequels). Central to the book is the detailed analysis of the films, which is contextualized historically in relation to a period that saw the significant rise of the far Right. The book concordantly affords a wider insight into fascism and its various manifestations and how such have been, and continue to be, registered within American cinema.