motion pictures, United States, Psychological aspects 

Screen Memories delves into the psychological features of mainstream movies from Casablanca to Working Girl. While most psychoanalytic film criticism is highly theoretical, Dr. Greenberg, a practicing clinician, writes in an entertaining, informative style that will appeal to fans and scholars alike. Greenberg begins with an overview of the history and methods of psychoanalytic film criticism. He then focuses upon character, motivation, and conflict in famous examples of detective, war, science-fiction, horror, and cult cinema. He also addresses the enduring emotional appeal of these genres to spectators from one generation to the next. Greenberg then fuses psychoanalysis and cultural criticism. He probes a type of big, bad picture which emerged in Hollywood in the 1970s and 1980s, embracing nearly every genre, with a particular focus on the hero's pathological narcissism in such films as Rambo and Top Gun. Editorial Reviews Review Not only does it clear away the fog from much deliberately opaque writing on the subject, but, like the rest of this playfully deep book look at the movies, it's fun to read. (Washington Post Book World) From the Back Cover Screen Memories delves into the psychological features of mainstream movies from Casablanca to Working Girl. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.