Hollywood and the End of the Cold War: Signs of Cinematic Change. by Bryn Upton (review)

Bryn Upton's new book, Hollywood and the End of the Cold War, a contribution to the Film and History series published by Rowman & Littlefield, covers a lot of ground and offers up plenty of films for consideration in the context of late 20th, early 21st-century cinema. Guiding us through the texts in a relaxed and efficient manner, Upton's book is a good first primer for students approaching the subject of the Cold War and its aftermath from a cultural perspective. Roaming across the landscape of the postwar world through foreign policy pictures, to superhero movies, by way of science fiction analogies, the author conceives of a rich tapestry of Hollywood films whose signs and signifiers readily identify the Cold War influence and persuasion.

Upton's introduction is a nice historical summation of the period, and the Cold War–era films he has chosen are likewise reflections, even refractions, of the 45-year bipolar conflict and its history of fear, suspicion, political entanglement, and cultural battles that raged across the globe. Opening chapters on superheroes and comic book adaptations are profitable explorations, therefore, into the analogous worlds of larger-then-life heroes and megalomaniacal villains. The real construction of those worlds, Upton rightly argues, has come with the recent technological shifts in cinematic production that have allowed almost anything to appear on screen. Thus, comparisons with earlier Batman and Spiderman franchises—both Tim Burton's and Sam Raimi's efforts, which are themselves comparatively recent—highlight the latest visual dynamics that have turned Marc Webb's Amazing Spiderman series and, especially, Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy into the big-budget behemoths they have become.

Early on, the notion that comic adaptations in the 2000s have embraced more complex and nuanced themes about U.S. hegemony and global presence is well-taken, but a later binary distinction between, for instance, James Bond's Cold War promiscuousness and misogyny and the hardened edges of the Jason Bourne series of movies is perhaps too convenient in its interpretation. Hollywood was hardly avoiding similar sexual proclivity in other areas of 1980s and 1990s cinema, and the 2000s and 2010s have offered much subtler and more diverse ways to talk about the subject regardless of the role of the generic action-hero or the shadow of the Cold War.

But where does the Cold War historical turn crop up in all of this? Upton's history of these movies—slowly complicating the certainties of U.S. discourse as time has gone on—works perfectly well. The films from the 1960s, especially, follow a "transition from the Cold War era to the post–Cold War era," he informs us (p. 36). Nonetheless, what that transition says about Hollywood, its ability to follow the flow of historical change, and why it might matter that cultural metaphors in films adapted from Marvel/DC Comics are played out in the way they are is not immediately apparent.

The book moves on in subsequent chapters to examine the Jason Bourne series (the first to "capture the post–Cold War zeitgeist," we are told; p. 138), as well as revisit Vietnam and even contemplate "mid-life crisis movies" as a way to instigate the personal psychological mediations inherent in the "crisis" of the end of the Cold War and the need to reflect on one's self, life, and place in the world. This is all pretty entertaining, makes useful points about the films, and appraises certain scenes and characters with a keen eye for interpretation and meaning. The post–Cold War collection of pictures, ranging from end-of-the-world narratives such as the much-lauded Children of Men and Contagion, to disaster films such as The Day after Tomorrow and the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still may well have Cold War antecedents working within their narratives, though the pattern and penchant...