Abstract

El tiempo del héroe.El tiempo del héroe. Épica y masculinidad en el cine de Hollywood is a historical tour through the many displays that the figure of the male hero has had throughout a century of epic films. In this study, its authors suggest a distinction between two basic typologies of heroic masculinity, depending on whether its icons' profiles lean towards an external, frantic and daytime action belonging to moving heroes, or towards a sentimental, nighttime and melancholic introspection linked to mature, twilight adventurers. This book's first part —'Hero action through time'— consists of a trip to the genre of acrobatic adventure from Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn's naive, optimistic beginnings to the breathtaking epics starred by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Cruise on the frantic screens from the digital era. Its second part —'Time's action through heroes'— explores spaces where the masculinity of some of the most prototypical tough men in cinema —from Humphrey Bogart to Clint Eastwood, from John Wayne to Harvey Keitel— calls for an emotional, inward-looking experience that minimizes the exhaustion of conquering.