"Straddling academia, film-criticism and polemic, this book is a wake up call to filmmakers. In applying psychoanalytic theory the authors make a serious contribution to the literature on how to make films but their grasp of how a medium they clearly adore has been quietly hijacked by populism is truly terrifying. The films dissected here are beautifully chosen to remind us of what cinema at its best is capable of." - Andy Paterson, Producer of The Girl With the Pearl Earring, Railway Man"The complex failure of the American dream is both a painful reality and, for filmmakers, an artistic opening. In this wide-ranging and sophisticated study, the authors unpack a number of key films of the Trump era, finding an astonishingly vivid portrait of the American soul in a time of cultural and moral disarray. A brilliant and challenging book that deserves a wide audience."- Jay Parini, Novelist and Poet - The Last Station, Borges and Me"In this bold, ambitious, and provocative book that will challenge and engage filmmakers, filmgoers and theorists alike, Graham S. Clarke and Ross Clarke draw on a range of theoretical approaches, including psychoanalysis, film and critical theory and social relations, to produce a blistering autopsy on the American Dream through the prism of nine key films from the Trump era."- Jonathan Hourigan, Programme Director MA Screenwriting, University of Manchester"Ever since Kracauer’s From Caligari to Hitler, film scholars have vividly described the ways in which the complex socio-political climate of an era finds indirect expression in its films. This new and compelling book by Graham and Ross Clarke casts a view beyond the usual national borders that mark such studies to provide a rich global perspective on recent cinema. Importantly, the authors show that, even as cinema changes in so many ways, this complex dynamic between films and their moment is as strong as ever." - Christian Keathley, Professor of Film and Media Culture, Middlebury College"Where is the American Dream now, post Trump, in a pandemic? What is beyond the end of the end of history? This book looks at nine recent, successful and important films with a psychoanalytical analysis of character and a socio-political view on US society. A provocation, an unstable balance, that gets you thinking and arguing." - Paul Gallagher, Head of MA Screenwriting, Birkbeck College, London University
