Adventure Movies: Cinema of the Quest

This volume examines the cinema of adventure, distinct from action and action-adventure. It argues that the adventurer is separate from the action hero and that the cinema of adventure--from tales of gods and monsters defied by mythic heroes to stories of crusaders conquering far-flung territories, from true-life accounts of survival or death at the extreme reaches of human endurance to science-fiction stories of journeys beyond human conception--represents a life-affirming confrontation with our collective mortality and spiritual immortality. Adventure heroes do not fear death like action heroes. They embrace and transcend death with a conviction grounded in a faith that extends behind and before them into eternity. They achieve immortality by telling and retelling their tales across media forms in spite of social and technological change.