摘要：If nothing else the oft-heard response to 9/11 - that events unfolded just 'like a movie' - spoke of the importance cinema had gained by the start of the twenty first century as a lens through which to view and comprehend American life. It is fitting then that cultural fallout from the attacks is particularly notable in film, as American Cinema of the 2000s: Themes and Variations attests: eight out of its ten chapters mention 9/11 either in passing or at length as an influence on the movies they discuss. This is not to say that analysis becomes a protracted dissection of one event's influence, though it remains that the World Trade Centres' absence is a discernible aporia in the films this book evaluates. For where does an industry devoted to spectacles go, when a disaster as tragically photogenic as 9/11 kick-starts the decade
