Visions of Paradise: Images of Eden in the Cinema - Softcover

Dixon, Wheeler Winston

9780813537986: Visions of Paradise: Images of Eden in the Cinema

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813537983 ISBN 13: 9780813537986

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 2006

Depictions of sex, violence, and crime abound in many of today's movies, sometimes making it seem that the idyllic life has vanished-even from our imaginations. But as shown in this unique book, paradise has not always been lost. For many years, depictions of heaven, earthly paradises, and utopias were common in popular films.

Illustrated throughout with intriguing, rare stills and organized to provide historical context, Visions of Paradise surveys a huge array of films that have offered us glimpses of life free from strife, devoid of pain and privation, and full of harmony. In films such as Moana, White Shadows in the South Seas, The Green Pastures, Heaven Can Wait, The Enchanted Forest, The Bishop's Wife, Carousel, Bikini Beach, and Elvira Madigan, characters and the audience partake in a vision of personal freedom and safety-a zone of privilege and protection that transcends the demands of daily existence.

Many of the films discussed are from the 1960s-perhaps the most edenic decade in contemporary cinema, when everything seemed possible and radical change was taken for granted. As Dixon makes clear, however, these films have not disappeared with the dreams of a generation; they continue to resonate today, offering a tonic to the darker visions that have replaced them.

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About the Author:

Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Professor of Film Studies, Coordinator of the Film Studies Program, Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and, with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, editor of the new book series Quick Takes: Movies and Popular Culture for Rutgers University Press.

He is the author of more than thirty books on film history, theory and criticism, as well as more than 100 articles in various academic journals. He is also an active experimental filmmaker, whose works are in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art.

His recent books include Black & White Cinema: A Short History (2015); Streaming: Movies, Media and Instant Access (2013); Death of the Moguls: The End of Classical Hollywood (2012); 21st Century Hollywood: Movies in the Era of Transformation (2011, co-authored with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster); A History of Horror (2010); and Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia (2009).

Dixon's book A Short History of Film (2008, co-authored with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster) was reprinted six times through 2012. A second, revised edition was published in 2013; a third, revised edition was published in 2018. The book is a required text in universities throughout the world.

Visit wheelerwinstondixon.com for more details on Dixon's books, films, and articles.

Review:

"Timely and brilliantly written, Wheeler Winston Dixon's Visions of Paradise: Images of Eden in the Cinema explores the relationship between images of paradisial escape in film and the realities of daily existence and the constant assault of digital technology, an assault that forces many to physically escape by vacationing to the "Eden[ic] paradises" presented on the silver screen." -Antoinette F. Winstead, Film and History

"A beatific guide, Dixon leads a whirlwind tour through cinematic locales and states of mind that augur harmonious, liberating, and privileged worlds of Eden. Collating diverse and even idiosyncratic images of Eden, the author begins the return to paradise with a telling anecdote of filmmaker John Pierson's sojourn in Fiji . . . [then] visits places as assorted as American International Pictures' summer beach-party movies, Robert Breer's abstract animations [and] Spencer Williams's fascinating The Blood of Jesus . . . spellbinding." -- T. Lindvall, Choice, November 2006.

"During this leisurely cruise through cinema's utopian dreams-its endless summers, surf cities, pajama parties, and beach-blanket Babylons-Dixon unearths the paradox of paradise, the schizoid foundation beneath every vision of Eden."-Mikita Brottman, author The Solitary Vice

Dixon has written a study that is more than a look at images of Eden in film. At its core, this work defines individual artistic creativity as an integral part of paradise. He celebrates the kind of art that "redeems us by reminding us of the creative impulse nascent in the very act of existence," an art that shapes Eden by looking at the existing environment in a fresh way and continually creating the world anew. What could be more Utopian than that?" -- Sharon Ammen, Society for Utopian Studies

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