Michelle,
you make an interesting distinction in your message between films that
are allegories, and reading (Hollywood) films allegorically.
This suggests that 'allegory' is just as much a reading strategy as an
ontological feature of a particular film.
As a reading strategy, reading films allegorically aims to link the film
to its social and historical context. To that extent, then, all forms of
interpretation are allegorical readings (feminist analyses,
psychoanalytic readings, etc.).
Some random examples: reading Spielberg's 'The Lost World' as an
allegory of the Vietnam war (cues in the film that can lead to this type
of allegorical reading are primarily iconographical).
Robert Corber has written of Hitchcock's postwar films as political
allegories. For example, 'Rear Window' is an allegory of McCarthyism -
spying on your neighbours 'in the name of national security' (the title
of Corber's book), to ensure your neighbour is not a communist or
homosexual. This is a worthwhile take on the film (whether it can be
'justified' by identifying particular cues on the surface of the film is
another matter). Corber goes beyond the psychoanalytical reading of the
film which is limited to the personal pleasures of Jeffries (visual
pleasure via voyeurism) as well as earlier readings the film as an
allegory of film spectatorship (proposed by numerous critics from Jean
Douchet onwards).
Warren
Editor, New Review of Film and Television Studies
Just published:
Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema.
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