This book discusses the complex relation between modernity and cinema drawing particularly upon the European and American cinema during the second half of the twentieth century. Orr attempts to rethink the relation of film-making to the contemporary world challenging many of the critical complacencies of post-modernism and offering a fresh perspective upon the development of the modern cinema.

John Orr is the author of several previous books including, The Making of the Twentieth Century Novel (1987) and Cinema and Fiction (co-author, 1992).