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P. 152
šolsko polje, letnik xxviii, številka 3–4
instance in a number of Fassbinder’s films the American Dream was ap-
propriated in “un-American” contexts, but it demonstrated many existen-
tial and emotional traits in any individual’s pursuit of happiness. Anoth-
er contributing factor in deciphering the social relevance of Hollywood
melodrama was the feminist movement after the 1960s and the scholar-
ship that went with it. Many films in the genre of melodrama exposed
the obstacles for an individual on her way to happiness. In these films, it
was very notable that the female characters were vigorously put into the
centre of highly emotional narratives. Some of the most visible melodra-
ma directors in the different periods of Hollywood cinema were “import-
ed” from Europe (Josef von Sternberg, Fritz Lang, and especially Doug-
las Sirk) and they shed a distinct light on the features of the American
Dream by confronting it with the social, economic and moral parame-
ters of American realities in different periods. Hollywood also created a
sub-genre of the drama of adolescents in the 1950s. The “paradigmatic”
film in this sub-genre, Nicholas Ray’s Rebel without a Cause (1955), re-
vealed critically how American conservatism and patriarchalism in con-
junction with class distinctions create insurmountable impediments for
a realisation of an individual’s (American) Dream. Other films from the
same period entered the world of education as, for a good example, Rich-
ard Brooks’ Blackboard Jungle (1955), in which desperate social circum-
stances undermine the mission of education.
American cinema is undoubtedly strongly associated with the Amer-
ican Dream in many ways. It popularizes the notion, many films show
a critical or even subversive attitude towards it, and some try to decon-
struct the various phases of American history, in which “something went
wrong”. Hence, American cinema keeps the American Dream alive by
mostly suggesting that its “original” purpose is threatened or perverted.
In some of the sophisticated, but still surprisingly quite popular, films
of David Lynch, the American Dream seems irretrievably lost and to-
tally falsified by the (post)modern outcomes. One of his later films, IN-
LAND EMPIRE (2006), exposes the wrecks of the American Dream in
his visual poetics of loss and elusive meanings as well as in in the charac-
ters of destructive and destructed individuals. Bert Cardullo sees in the
bulk of Lynch’s work a deconstruction of the aesthetic codes of Ameri-
can transcendentalism. Yet, it seems that Lynch does not attempt to to-
tally renounce this distinctive tradition, since in his film The Straight Sto-
ry (1999), the formula of American transcendentalism is fully employed.
For American transcendentalism, as sponsored by Ralph Waldo Emer-
son, emphasized the practice of self-trust and self-reliance at all times, at
150
instance in a number of Fassbinder’s films the American Dream was ap-
propriated in “un-American” contexts, but it demonstrated many existen-
tial and emotional traits in any individual’s pursuit of happiness. Anoth-
er contributing factor in deciphering the social relevance of Hollywood
melodrama was the feminist movement after the 1960s and the scholar-
ship that went with it. Many films in the genre of melodrama exposed
the obstacles for an individual on her way to happiness. In these films, it
was very notable that the female characters were vigorously put into the
centre of highly emotional narratives. Some of the most visible melodra-
ma directors in the different periods of Hollywood cinema were “import-
ed” from Europe (Josef von Sternberg, Fritz Lang, and especially Doug-
las Sirk) and they shed a distinct light on the features of the American
Dream by confronting it with the social, economic and moral parame-
ters of American realities in different periods. Hollywood also created a
sub-genre of the drama of adolescents in the 1950s. The “paradigmatic”
film in this sub-genre, Nicholas Ray’s Rebel without a Cause (1955), re-
vealed critically how American conservatism and patriarchalism in con-
junction with class distinctions create insurmountable impediments for
a realisation of an individual’s (American) Dream. Other films from the
same period entered the world of education as, for a good example, Rich-
ard Brooks’ Blackboard Jungle (1955), in which desperate social circum-
stances undermine the mission of education.
American cinema is undoubtedly strongly associated with the Amer-
ican Dream in many ways. It popularizes the notion, many films show
a critical or even subversive attitude towards it, and some try to decon-
struct the various phases of American history, in which “something went
wrong”. Hence, American cinema keeps the American Dream alive by
mostly suggesting that its “original” purpose is threatened or perverted.
In some of the sophisticated, but still surprisingly quite popular, films
of David Lynch, the American Dream seems irretrievably lost and to-
tally falsified by the (post)modern outcomes. One of his later films, IN-
LAND EMPIRE (2006), exposes the wrecks of the American Dream in
his visual poetics of loss and elusive meanings as well as in in the charac-
ters of destructive and destructed individuals. Bert Cardullo sees in the
bulk of Lynch’s work a deconstruction of the aesthetic codes of Ameri-
can transcendentalism. Yet, it seems that Lynch does not attempt to to-
tally renounce this distinctive tradition, since in his film The Straight Sto-
ry (1999), the formula of American transcendentalism is fully employed.
For American transcendentalism, as sponsored by Ralph Waldo Emer-
son, emphasized the practice of self-trust and self-reliance at all times, at
150
