A Tale of Two Versions

‘I Am Legend’ (2007) and the Political Economy of Cultural Production

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7557/13.5011

Keywords:

I Am Legend (2007), propaganda model, Hollywood, cultural production, othering, test-screenings, liminal space

Abstract

Based on a comparative reading of the officially released version and the director’s cut of Francis Lawrence’s movie I Am Legend (2007a; 2007b), the present contribution interrogates possible connections between the political economy of film production and aesthetic form. Drawing upon theoretical frameworks such as Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model and Artz’ critical study of global entertainment industries, and combining these with an analysis of Lawrence’s two versions, I argue that profit-oriented adaptations to implied market pressures are not neutral endeavours, but inherently political acts that shape aesthetic form to, often-tacitly, reiterate a received hegemonic status quo.

Author Biography

Holger Pötzsch, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

is Associate Professor of Media and Documentation Studies at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. His main research interest is the intersection between media and conflict. He has published on war films, war games, memory and conflict, the politics and economy of digital networks, and border culture and technology. He currently coordinates the research networks ‘Manufacturing Monsters’ and WAR/GAME.

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Published

2019-11-11

How to Cite

Pötzsch, Holger. 2019. “A Tale of Two Versions: ‘I Am Legend’ (2007) and the Political Economy of Cultural Production”. Nordlit, no. 42 (November):171–190. https://doi.org/10.7557/13.5011.

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