The post-9/11 American political thriller film: Hollywood’s dissident screenplays

Abstract

The American political thriller, from its cinematic beginnings in the 1960s until its most recent period of popularity in the late 2000s and the early 2010s, has consistently displayed two salient characteristics: on an extra-textual level, it tends to keep a close relationship with the (geo)political environment at the time of production, with themes that resonate with the cultural moment, sometimes even referencing current events, and frequently challenging traditionally upheld American values with mistrustful attitudes towards the State, its institutions, the military and a suspect corporate establishment. On the other hand, the textual configuration of these films reveals a certain nonconformity with the traditionally dominant narrative-aesthetic norms of Hollywood cinema, featuring reactive agency in its protagonists, an unusual degree of subjectivity in its narration and a remarkable degree of ambiguity in the dramatic resolutions of some storylines. These formal features enhance the thematic concerns and cinematic worldview of the political thriller genre, both creating and exploiting perplexity and paranoia in the audience, through highly demanding narratives that remove the feeling of control from the viewer, and with a specific political intent that becomes exceptionally effective thanks to its entertainment value. The works analysed to illustrate this trend covers theatrically released Hollywood films of the genre from 2001 until the present day, with special attention on the impact of 9/11 and the War on Terror in their narrative premises and themes.

The politics of the political thrillers: de-othering Iran in Tehran (Kan, 2021-)

“…noted, by two key factors: the geo-politics that developed in the aftermath of 9/11 and the new landscape of film and television production, dominated by global streaming platforms (Saunders 2019;Glynn and Cupples 2015;Castrillo and Echart 2015;Castrillo 2019Castrillo , 2020Takacs 2012;Kumar and Kundnani 2014). Reflecting the zeitgeist of the new millennium, these new political thrillers are marked by interconnectivity and transnationalism, both in their content and production contexts, by greater emphasis on contemporary geo-political concerns and by seemingly new gender politics, subverting the hitherto masculine typification of the genre.…”