The Contemporary American Survival Film

Dr. Cassice Last (Doctoral Researcher, University of St Andrews, UK)

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English

Bloomsbury Academic USA
15 May 2025

Film, TV & Radio; Film theory & criticism; The environment

The Contemporary American Survival Film investigates and breaks down the contemporary American Survival Film (from Cast Away onwards), focusing on film, television, literature and video games.

In the contemporary (and highly popular) American survival film, a lone figure is lost, trapped or stuck. Whether a desert island, cramped canyon, floating raft or the Alaskan tundra, the space cuts the characters off from their loved ones, communication technologies, transport or a means of escape. The sun burns flesh, the dry air dehydrates, the lack of food starves, the snow chills bodies and the sharp rocks pierce limbs.

This book examines this survival space across film, television, video games, literature and online, asking four questions. Firstly, what does the post 2000s survival space look and behave like, how is it new or distinct? Secondly, the natural environment seems to hold all the power. How responsible is the setting for triggering narrative events, does the character have any agency at all? Thirdly, the environment damages the human body. How does this corporeal destruction interact with the notion of a specifically American fleshiness of the American survivor? Finally, could/would one ever willingly choose to enter the survival space and why? How is this survival space employing, rejecting and reworking past rubrics?

By: Dr. Cassice Last (Doctoral Researcher University of St Andrews UK)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic USA
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 469g
ISBN: 9781501393174
ISBN 10: 1501393170
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 15 May 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of Illustrations Introduction: Entering the Filmic Survival Space 1. Desert Island Risks: Cast Away’s Island as the 21st-century Model for Survival 2. Spaces of (Dis)Empowerment: Agency in 127 Hours and Three Survival Gameworlds 3. Surviving (Un)Productive Wounds and Bodily Transformations in The Shallows and Survivor 4. Choosing the American Survival Space with Bear Grylls and Christopher McCandless Conclusion: Human Versus Where (Are We Now)? Bibliography Filmography and Other Media Index

Cassice Last is a Doctoral Researcher at University of St Andrews, UK.

Reviews for The Contemporary American Survival Film

This is an extremely insightful and provocative study of lone-survivalism in American media which greatly adds to eco-media scholarship as well as genre study, not to mention providing a very detailed examination of the human body in extremis, covering video games, reality television shows as well as an extremely satisfying analysis of a number of well-chosen American films, which are both confidently handled and well balanced throughout. My personal favourite is an exploration of the ending of Into the Wild and Last’s useful comparison with (Bear) Grylls, where she concludes that while McCandless space offers death for those that seek counter-cultural values, Grylls' space accepts the human outposts that help make up the world in which humans survive. The author’s firm hope is that further study into the survival film will address our new geological epoch, driven by human interference. Cassice Last has made a great start in this important project with this book. * Pat Brereton, Emeritus Professor, Dublin City University, Ireland * Cassice Last offers a compelling analysis of subjectivity, the body, and the natural environment in filmic survival spaces. Focusing on a range of media texts, The Contemporary American Survival Film profoundly engages us to reconsider the relationship between humans and survival environments in the digital era. * Thomas J. Connelly, Lecturer, New York University Los Angeles, USA, and author of Cinema of Confinement (2019) and Capturing Digital Media: Perfection and Imperfection in Contemporary Film and Television (2019) * This excellent and thorough book demonstrates why the survival film should be taken seriously as a genre. Cassice Last demonstrates the importance of understanding the survival space as integral to this genre, and as speaking to concerns about post-millennial American experience. The Contemporary American Survival Film is an important, and welcome, addition to genre studies, film studies and American studies. * Claire Jenkins, Lecturer in Film and television Studies, University of Leicester, UK *