Research Catalog

Hollywood under siege : Martin Scorsese, the religious right, and the culture wars

Title: Hollywood under siege : Martin Scorsese, the religious right, and the culture wars / Thomas R. Lindlof.
Author: Lindlof, Thomas R.
Publication: Lexington, Ky. : University Press of Kentucky, ©2008.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	PN1997.L3443 L56 2008	Off-site

Details

Description

xi, 394 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

"In 1988, director Martin Scorsese fulfilled his lifelong dream of making a film about Jesus Christ. Rather than celebrating the film as a statement of faith, churches and religious leaders immediately went on the attack, alleging blasphemy. At the height of the controversy, thousands of phone calls a day flooded the Universal Pictures switchboard, and before the year was out, more than three million mailings protesting the film fanned out across the country. For the first time in history, a studio took responsibility for protecting theaters and scrambled to recruit a "field crisis team" to guide The Last Temptation of Christ through its contentious American openings. Overseas, the film faced widespread censorship actions; thirteen countries eventually banned the film. The response in Europe turned violent when opposition groups sacked theaters in France and Greece and caused injuries to dozens of moviegoers." "Twenty years later, Thomas R. Lindlof offers a comprehensive account of how this provocative film came to be made and how Universal Pictures and its parent company MCA became targets of the most intense, unremitting attacks ever mounted against a media company. The film faced early and determined opposition from elements of the religious right when it was being developed at Paramount during the last year the studio was run by the celebrated troika of Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. By the mid-1980s, Scorsese's film was widely regarded as unmakeable - a political stick of dynamite that no one dared touch. Through the joint efforts of two of the era's most influential executives, CAA president Michael Ovitz and Universal Pictures chairman Thomas P. Pollock, this improbable project found its way into production." "Hollywood Under Siege draws on interviews with many of the key figures - Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Michael Ovitz, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Jack Valenti, Thomas P. Pollock, and Willem Dafoe - to explore the trajectory of the film from its conception to the subsequent epic controversy and beyond. Lindlof offers a fascinating dissection of a critical episode in the embryonic culture wars, illuminating the explosive effects of the clash between the interests of the media industry and the forces of social conservatism."--Jacket.

Subjects

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. [375]-380) and index.

Contents

Dying dangerously -- Paramount -- Universal -- Morocco -- Fevers under the veil -- Summer of the locust -- Teeth bared, knuckles white -- The big wind-up -- Trouble in flyover country -- Scorched earth blues.

ISBN

9780813125176
0813125170
9780813173160
0813173167

LCCN

2008015671

OCLC

ocn209662215
209662215
SCSB-14741842

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library