Cinematic TV

Abstract

AbstractIn the last two decades, media scholars have often suggested that television has become cinematic. Once considered “a mere instrument of transmission,” as Rudolf Arnheim put it, or derided as a vast wasteland, TV is now praised for its visual density and complexity. Serial dramas, in particular, are acclaimed for their imitations of cinema’s stylistically innovative and narratively challenging conventions. But what exactly does “cinematic TV” mean? Cinematic TV takes up this question comprehensively, arguing that TV dramas quote, copy, and appropriate (primarily) American cinema in multiple ways and toward multiple ends. Putting together an innovative framework by combining intertextuality and memory studies, Cinematic TV focuses on four modalities of intermedial borrowings: homage, evocation, genre, and parody. Through close readings of such exemplary shows as Stranger Things, Mad Men, Damages, and Dear White People, the book demonstrates how serial dramas reproduce and rework, undermine and idolize, and, in some cases, compete with and outdo cinema. Ultimately, Cinematic TV argues that serial dramas function archivally in relation to cinema, for cinematic moments, motifs, and contours hover around the televisual frame, constantly breaking through. How serial dramas handle such cinematic hauntings is the story that this book tells.