Memory's Orbit

Joseph Natoli

Description

Mixing memoir and cultural criticism, Memory's Orbit examines the intersections between a wide range of films and current events, finding its theme and orbiting narrative structure in the personal stories we live within and their relationship to the social and cultural order. Joseph Natoli covers such films as The Matrix, American Beauty, Fight Club, Eyes Wide Shut, and American History X, as well as such headline events as the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., the dot-com boom, the WTO protests in Seattle, and Bush versus Gore, consistently identifying those aspects of the social order that have shaped his narrating frame. Eschewing theoretical exposition and jargon, Natoli performs postmodern critique, and this book continues his innovative work in the genre of cultural studies.

After September 11, 2001

Oxley Holl'r, West Virginia, April 1976

Martha's Vineyard, July 17, 1999

Brooklyn, November 22, 1963

Inside the Matrix, January 3, 2000

Oxley Holl'r, West Virginia, Fall 1975

St. Alban's Naval Hospital, 1966

Outer-Six Theatre, August 1999

Oxley Holl'r, West Virginia, Winter 1977

Staten Island, New York, March 1999

Sleepy Hollow, New York, December 31, 1999

Moriarity's Pub, Fall 1999

On the Set of Oprah, Jerry, Martha and Tony, Spring 1999

Robin Wood Trail, Winter 1999

Time Codes: Brooklyn Heights, Henniker, Bluefield, Irvine, April 2000

New Hampshire, February 2000

Goshen, Indiana, February 4, 2000

The Boiler Room, February 2000

East Lansing, Michigan, March 2000

Oxley Holl'r, West Virginia, Summer 1975

Eden, August 2000

Not Seattle, November 1999

Elsinore Castle, November 7, 2000

In the Ring, October 1999

Brooklyn, Thanksgiving 1953

Orbiting in a Time Machine, October 1, 2000

Long Island, July 1999

Halls of Valhalla, 1999

Leiden, The Netherlands, Spring 1999

Re-orbiting, 1975

Index

Sujets

• Popular culture
• History of film

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9780791486894
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Memory’s Orbit

Joseph Natoli, editor

Memory’s Orbit



Film and Culture 1999–2000

J O S E P H N A T O L I

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2003 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production by Marilyn P. Semerad Marketing by Michael Campochiaro

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Natoli, Joseph P., 1943– Memory’s orbit : film and culture, 1999–2000 / Joseph Natoli. p. cm. — (SUNY series in postmodern culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0791457192 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0791457206 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures—Social aspects—United States. 2. Motion pictures—Political aspects—United States. I. Title. II. Series.

PN1995.9.S6 N375 2003 302.23'43'0973—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2002029180

For my mom, Mary Natoli, whose death this spring has put me into parallel orbits of grieving and remembering with a smile

This page intentionally left blank.

Contents

After September 11, 2001

Oxley Holl’r, West Virginia, April 1976

Martha’s Vineyard, July 17, 1999

Brooklyn, November 22, 1963

Inside the Matrix, January 3, 2000

Oxley Holl’r, West Virginia, Fall 1975

St. Alban’s Naval Hospital, 1966

OuterSix Theatre, August 1999

Oxley Holl’r, West Virginia, Winter 1977

Staten Island, New York, March 1999

Sleepy Hollow, New York, December 31, 1999

Moriarity’s Pub, Fall 1999

On the Set of Oprah, Jerry, Martha, and Tony, Spring 1999

Robin Wood Trail, Winter 1999

Time Codes: Brooklyn Heights, Henniker, Bluefield, Irvine, April 2000

New Hampshire, February 2000

vii

1

1

1

5

9

2

5

3

1

3

4

7

4

4

8

5

6

5

0

6

7

5

2

8

9

9

0

0

9

122

viii

Memory’s Orbit

Goshen, Indiana, February 4, 2000

The Boiler Room, February 2000

East Lansing, Michigan, March 2000

Oxley Holl’r, West Virginia, Summer 1975

Eden, August 2000

Not Seattle, November 1999

Elsinore Castle, November 7, 2000

In the Ring, October 1999

Brooklyn, Thanksgiving 1953

Orbiting in a Time Machine, October 1, 2000

Long Island, July 1999

Halls of Valhalla, 1999

Leiden, The Netherlands, Spring 1999

Reorbiting, 1975

Index

132

143

147

153

161

170

175

185

189

198

205

214

220

227

229

After September 11, 2001

It’s ten days after the destruction of the World Trade Center tow ers and the attack on the Pentagon. I’m writing a preface not only to this last installment of my history of the American cultural imaginary in the 1990s,Memory’s Orbit,but to the previous three volumes: Hauntings, Speeding to the Millennium,andPostmodern Journeys. They each had a preface but now that both the decade and this writ ing project are over and the “cultural imaginaries” we live in as Amer icans have so drastically and suddenly been interrupted, I need to bridge millennia. Our Y2K, that cataclysmic millennial event we antic ipated, has happened. A belated millennial metamorphosis. We’re in a post–September 11th world now; it’s different. There has been a cul tural sea change in America. I think we all surmise that regardless of how well we come to know the causes of the September 11th destruction of the World Trade Center towers and part of the Pentagon, or how closely we can see ourselves as our attackers do, their crime remains unmitigated. We can say we don’t care about the whys; we only care about bringing them to justice, bring ing justice to them. And we care about how we will be able to charter a safe passage through the troubled waters we are now in. We can say that it doesn’t really matter what our peace of mind was before; what mat ters now is that it’s gone and we must learn to live in a world where threatening dark shadows always follow our steps. It never made much of a difference to Americans that most of the rest of the world has always lived in such apprehension. This is new for this brave, new world. We don’t know how brave we can be in a world where surgical strikes can strike everything but the cancer.



Whatever we imagined ourselves to be, whatever our 1990s psychic mindset was, is now no longer. How to answer this question that has been raised again and again these past ten days?

1