The Vatican to Vegas : A History of Special Effects.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Klein, Norman M., author.

Series:

Urban Studies ; 87

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Media literacy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (531 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Bielefeld : transcript Verlag, 2025.

Language Note:

In English.

Biography/History:

Norman M. Klein, born in 1945, is professor in the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts, and the author, for instance, of »The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory« (1997/2008) and »The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects« (2004), the multimedia historical novel, »The Imaginary 20th Century« (2016), »Freud in Coney Island and Other Tales« (2006). A critic, urban and media historian, and novelist, he has written extensively on the culture and politics of Los Angeles, on cinema, and on architecture.

Summary:

A guided tour through the nuanced politics of architectural illusion, The Vatican to Vegas takes the reader from lavish Baroque fantasies of the seventeenth century to the Electronic Baroque of today.The ›scripted spaces‹ described by Norman M.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

The Vatican to Vegas

Part I. Scripted Spaces and the Illusion of Power, 1550-1780

Images

1. Baroque Immersion, Baroque Artifice

2. Perspective Awry

3. Masques

4. Happy Imprisonment: Labyrinths

5. Burning Down Vesuvius: Late Baroque Gizmos and Fiery Illusions, 1750-1780

Part II. Building the Unexpected: Industrial Fables as Special Effects, 1780-1964

Nineteenth Century Tricks (trucs)

The Paris Opera circa 1889

Stereographic (3-D) Photo Cards

6. After 1780: The Baroque Imaginary into Science Fiction

7. Aloft: Jules Verne; Felix Nadar; Edgar Allan Poe

8. Oz

9. Panoramas: A Crow's Nest Over London; Walking Through Gettysburg

10. The Virgin and the Dynamo: World's Fairs, 1851-1964

Part III. Alien Thrills: Epic Shocks on Screen, 1895 to the Present

11. Movie F/X: Making Heads Roll

12. 2001 to 2001: Immersion into Deep Space. Baroque Reincarnation

13. Animation as Baroque: Fleischer Morphs Harlem; Tangos to Crocodiles

14. Panoramic Chases into Nowhere: From Tex Avery to Independence Day

15. The Sim Future of the Cinematic City

Part IV. The Electronic Baroque: 1955-2050

16. Noir Disney

17. Scripted Spaces: Navigating the Consumer-Built City

18. Outside the Labyrinth: Architainment in Las Vegas

19. The Disappearing Nineties: Jerde Cities

Conclusion

Easy Credit: Driving Two Hundred Years a Day in Los Angeles

Afterword

Bush as Baroque Special Effects: (December 23, 2000)

Appendix

Search Engine for the History of Special Effects

Afterword for New Edition (September 2023)

Notes

Notes:

This eBook is made available Open Access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

3-8394-6169-3

OCLC:

1534814865