Film at the Intersection of High and Mass Culture analyses the
contradictions and interaction between high and low art, with particular
reference to Hollywood and European cinema. Written in the essayistic
speculative tradition of Walter Benjamin and Thedor Adorno, this study
also includes analyses of several key films of the 1980s. Tracing the
boundaries of such genres as film noir, science fiction and melodrama,
it demonstrates how these genres were radically expanded by such film
makers as Neil Jordan, Chris Marker and Georges Franju. This work also
reflects on kitsch, the star system, racial and gender stereotypes and
the nature of audience participation. While defining the conditions
under which the symbiotic relationship between high and mass culture can
be cross-fertilising, the study stresses their inevitably contradictory
characteristics.