.jpg)
The repeated recourse to Great Depression and World War II-era popular culture - in Lucas' space adventures, in Spielberg's Indiana Jones series, in the Superman and Batman films - sought to revive national myths and dreams by drawing on narratives and characters from the last era of ideological coherence and common belief. Filmmakers reached back in time, or out in space, for that which eluded them in the present. Their repetitions and appropriations, however, implied no perspective on the past, nor any dialogue between past and present. If inevitable differences between eras were acknowledge, it was through a self-conscious knowingness. (...) At best the films became simply nostalgic, expressions of the regret at the loss of former certainties and the emptiness of the transient cultural proeminence that blockbusters attained. Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America , p. 357-8.
