By Fran Mason

From the preface: “The film gangster, therefore, represents a seminal figure in the history of twentieth-century culture, forming the focus for a range of tensions that have dominated the discourses of industrialised society. These range from the role of the individual within an increasingly rationalised society, the impact of urban space (and its association with the fracturing discourses of modernity and postmodernity), the tension between tradition and the modern, the opposition between labour and pleasure, and particularly the relationship between ideology and freedom.

NY. Palgrave Macmillan. 2002. 203p. CONTAINS MARK-UP.