Erasing virtually all traces of 1960s and 70s 'New Wave' experimentation, American film in the 1980s has returned with a vengeance to a more linear, conventional style. In this newly revised edition of 'the best book on contemporary American film that we have' ( Washington Post Book World ), Robert Phillip Kolker updates, continues, and expands his enquiry into the phenomenon of cinematic representations of culture. The book makes available to film students and enthusiasts a major summary and analysis of recent developments and trends for the forseeable future, and includes new discussions of the films of Arthur Penn, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, and Steven Spielberg. The chapter on Spielberg replaces that on Coppola in the first edition. Readership: students of film.