The result is a hilarious, insightful, and surprisingly heart-warming short doc about the pleasures and pitfalls of race and representation in Hollywood. Thirty years later, haunted by the spectre of possibility, Adilman did what any good documentarian would: he tracked down as many other people as he could who auditioned for the role as kids, interviewed them about their complex relationships with Ke Huy Quan’s winning performance, and gave them the chance to reprise the roles through the magic of digital special effects. In 1983, Toronto-based filmmaker Nobu Adilman was one of hundreds of Asian boys who auditioned for the role of the sidekick Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a role that ultimately went to then-unknown Ke Huy Quan (currently enjoying a comeback as co-lead in Everything Everywhere All at Once). Spielberg also serves as the indirect inspiration for tonight’s short film pairing, Short Round Up. Themes of performance, obsession, and the search for identity run through this entertaining, stylish caper as the frauds and impersonations escalate and the two men begin to form an unlikely bond through the thrill of the chase. This thesis maps the history of the Hollywood family film, documenting the motivations and strategies involved in its emergence and development, analysing the form creatively and ideologically, evaluating its place within global mass entertainment, and underlining its considerable importance.What if you could be anyone you wanted to be? Inspired by a maybe-true story, Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can follows the life and crimes of charming con-man and forger Frank Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the dogged FBI agent tasked with tracking him down (festival mainstay Tom Hanks). – and increasingly international – culture, as audiences flock to see films which appear to transcend run-of-the-mill screen entertainment by providing universally-intelligible aesthetic and/or emotional satisfaction. It is the Holy Grail for mainstream producers, and has attained considerable importance in U.S. Catch Me If You Can, Reviews 2002 Film Parents need to know that there is some mature material, including the fact that the main character is a con man who.

Whilst the idea of a universally-appealing film remains an impossible dream, mainstream Hollywood has pursued it relentlessly. Although such movies have not always commanded the mass (‘family’) audiences for which they are intended, they have flourished in the domestic and international media marketplace since the 1970s, and their commercial and cultural dominance appears likely to extend further in the years to come. Films targeting the so-called ‘family audience’ were excellent propaganda for Hollywood, suggesting superior production, inoffensiveness and broad appeal. The family film was the result both of external pressures to make films more morally-suitable for children, and the desire to engage a more middle-class mass audience. Hollywood cinema was already an international cultural phenomenon, but was founded upon a claim to universality that was undermined by the predominance of adult-orientated films. The ‘family film’ originated in early-1930s Hollywood as a mixture of propaganda and commercial idealism. For this reason, they are inextricably linked with Hollywood – the only film industry in the world with the resources and distribution capacity to address a truly global mass audience. Initially, the audience for family films was predominantly domestic, but with the increasing spending power of international audiences, family films are now formulated on the belief that no market is inaccessible. This they achieve through a combination of ideological populism, emotional stimulation, impressive spectacle, and the calculated minimisation of potentially objectionable elements, such as sex, violence, and excessive socio-cultural specificity. I will argue that Hollywood family films are designed to transcend normative barriers of age, gender, race, culture and even taste they target the widest possible audiences to maximise commercial returns, trying to please as many people, and offend as few, as possible. How have ‘family films’ become so globally dominant? One answer is that Hollywood’s international power facilitates the global proliferation of its products, but this explanation, in isolation, is insufficient. Since the 1970s, Hollywood family films have been the most lucrative screen entertainments in the world, and despite their relativelyunexplored status in academic film criticism and history, I will argue that the format is centrally important in understanding mainstream Hollywood cinema.

'This thesis is the first in-depth, historical study of Hollywood’s relationship with the ‘family audience’ and ‘family film’.

Catch me if u can