Table Of ContentAlternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema:  w
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Resonance Between Realms lt
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s
The use of alternate realities in cinema has been brought to new  a
heights by such recent films as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind  lte
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and Donnie Darko. Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema is the first  n
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book to analyze these imaginary realms, tracing their construction 
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and development across periods, genres and history. iv
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Through an analysis of such landmark films as The Wizard of Oz, 
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It’s a Wonderful Life and Groundhog Day, Walters reveals how 
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unconventional worlds are crucial to each film’s dramatic agenda  ld
s
and narrative structure. This groundbreaking volume unifies decades   
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of divergent work by film scholars and points the way towards a 
 
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new theoretical framework for understanding fantasy in the context  o
of popular film. Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema will be an  lly
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essential resource for film studies scholars and movie buffs alike.
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James Walters is a Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Birmingham. d
 
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Alternative Worlds in 
Hollywood Cinema
Resonance Between Realms
Alternative Worlds in 
Hollywood Cinema
Resonance Between Realms
James Walters
 
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First Published in the UK in 2008 by
Intellect Books, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2008 by
Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago,
IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2008 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
 
written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover Design: Gabriel Solomons
Copy Editor: Holly Spradling
Typesetting: Mac Style, Nafferton, E. Yorkshire
             ISBN 978-1-84150-202-1/EISBN 978-1-84150-252-6
                                   Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press, Malta.
C
ontents
Acknowledgements  7
Introduction    9
Chapter One: Establishing Contexts  15
Part One: Imagined Worlds  41
Chapter Two: Imagined Worlds  43
Chapter Three: Making it Home: The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) &  
The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang, 1944)  55
Chapter Four: Return to Innocence: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind  
(Michael Gondry, 2004)  81
Part Two: Potential Worlds  105
 
Chapter Five: Potential Worlds  107
Chapter Six: Reclaiming the Real: It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)  115
Chapter Seven: The Search for Tomorrow: Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)  135
Part Three: Other Worlds  155
Chapter Eight: Other Worlds  157
6  | ALTERNATIVE WORLDS IN HOLLYWOOD CINEMA
Chapter Nine: Life Beyond Reason: Brigadoon (Vincente Minnelli, 1954)  169
Chapter Ten: Rehearsal Space: Pleasantville (Gary Ross, 1998)  191
Conclusion    213
Filmography    221
Bibliography    227
Index    231
A
Cknowledgements
This study has benefited from the guidance and support of many individuals and institutions. I 
would like to thank the staff of the Department of Film Studies at the University of Kent for three 
crucial years of undergraduate education, and especially Andrew Klevan whose energy, rigour 
and vitality as both a teacher and a scholar continues to be a source of inspiration. I would 
also like to thank the staff and students of the Institute of Film Studies at the University of 
Nottingham, where this book began life, for their helpful comments and suggestions in the early 
stages, especially Mark Jancovich for his careful assessment of the work. Nottingham and then 
the Arts and Humanities Research Council have supported me financially in my research and 
I thank them for the faith they have shown. Danny Rubin kindly agreed to be interviewed for 
this book and I am deeply grateful for the insights he gave into the writing and filming of 
Groundhog Day. I am also immensley grateful to Sam King at Intellect Books, who has guided 
the book through its publication with care, enthusiasm and dedication.
The Department of Film and Television at the University of Warwick provided a perfect 
environment for the growth and development of the thoughts and ideas contained in these 
 
pages. I am indebted to a host of fellow researchers who shared suggestions and sympathies 
throughout, and I would especially like to thank James Bennett and Tom Brown for their 
enduring friendship and good judgement. Many of the staff in the department offered insights 
into the work, both formally and informally, and I thank them for their generous investment. V.F. 
Perkins, particularly, has had a prominent influence on my work both as a teacher, colleague, 
and through a body of scholarship that is indispensable for anyone engaged in the study of 
film. I reserve greatest thanks for Ed Gallafent, whose generosity, vigour and understanding 
has driven the project and profoundly shaped its outcomes. I cannot adequately articulate his 
contribution so I simply thank him for the depth of his commitment. 
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Amy, who understands so much about films and whose 
humour, intelligence and support has constantly inspired me to work. This book is dedicated 
to her.
I
ntroduCtIon
Hollywood films have always exhibited a general tendency to contrast ‘worlds’ of particular 
kinds and orders. We might consider, for example, the ways in which the worlds of domesticity 
and criminality are brought together in Max Ophüls’ The Reckless Moment (1949) and how, 
in that film, Ophüls succeeds in exposing the shortcomings of Lucia Harper’s (Joan Bennett) 
conventionally safe domestic world precisely by having the criminal underworld invade its 
apparent sanctity. The integral detail in the film’s elucidation of these shortcomings lies in the 
way that a supposedly unscrupulous blackmailer from the criminal world, Martin Donnelly 
(James Mason) is shown to offer the loyalty, sympathy and tenderness unavailable to her in her 
own world. Potential threat becomes temporary salvation, therefore, as a character from one 
world provides unexpected relief for a character who belongs to another.1 
Similarly, we may think of Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) in which Roger 
Thornhill (Cary Grant) is forced to exchange his world of work with the world of international 
espionage. As with The Reckless Moment, this can, on the surface, be read as a move from 
safety to danger, from order to disruption. However, as with Ophüls before, it might also be 
 
said that Hitchcock makes his character’s life precarious precisely to illustrate existing deficiencies 
and, particularly, to exemplify Thornhill’s own shortcomings in one world by throwing him 
unceremoniously into another. This view is taken up in Robin Wood’s landmark study as he 
remarks that, at the beginning, Thornhill is:
a man who lives purely on the surface, refusing all commitment or responsibility 
(appropriately, he is in advertising), immature for all his cocksureness, his life all the more 
a chaos for the fact he doesn’t recognize it as such; a man who relies above all upon 
the trappings of modern civilization – business, offices, cocktail bars, machines – for 
protection, who substitutes bustle and speed for a sense of direction or purpose; a 
modern city Everyman, whose charm and self-confidence and smartness make him 
especially easy for the spectator to identify with, so that at the start we are scarcely 
conscious of his limitations as a human being.2
Description:The use of alternate realities in cinema has been brought to new heights by such recent films as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Donnie Darko. Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema is the first book to analyze these imaginary realms, tracing their construction and development across perio