Dreams of Flight: "The Great Escape" in American Film and Culture

The book "Dreams of Flight" is the first full-length study of the 1960s film "The Great Escape" and its place in Hollywood and American history. It combines production and reception history with close reading to explore the film's impact on the 1960s, including its representation of military history, culture, and identity. The book also traces the film's influence in subsequent movies, TV commercials, and cartoons.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 09 November 2021
Publisher: University of California Press

The iconic 1960s film "The Great Escape" and its place in Hollywood and American history have been extensively studied in "Dreams of Flight," the first full-length exploration of the film. Combining production and reception history with close reading, the book offers a comprehensive analysis of the classic film based on a true story of Allied prisoners who devised an audacious plan to divert and thwart the Wehrmacht and escape into the nearby countryside.

Through breezy prose and pithy analysis, author Dana Polan centers "The Great Escape" within American cultural and intellectual history, painting a vivid picture of the country in the 1960s. The book explores a nation grappling with its own military history, a society undergoing significant shifts in its culture and identity, and a film industry transitioning from Old Hollywood's big-budget runaway studio films to the slow interior cinema of New Hollywood.

Dreams of Flight combines this contextual information with fan anecdotes and a close study of filmic style to bring readers into the film and trace its wide-reaching influence. Polan examines the production history, including prior adaptations in radio and television of celebrated author Paul Brickhill's original nonfiction book about the escape. He also compares the cinematic fiction to the real events of the escape in 1944.

Furthermore, "Dreams of Flight" traces the afterlife of "The Great Escape" in the many subsequent movies, TV commercials, and cartoons that reference it, whether reverentially or with humor. The book offers a deep dive into the cultural significance of "The Great Escape" and its enduring legacy in American cinema.

Dimension: 210 x 140 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520379299