The Warm Glow of Cold War Nostalgia

The chapter argues that the resurgence in the late 2010s of films set during or focusing on events of the Cold War allow American audiences to buy into a nostalgically purified vision of America as morally and militarily superior to our allies and to our enemies–contributing to a new victory culture untroubled by the actual events of history. It focuses such films as Atomic Blonde and Bridge of Spies and claims that they re-secure and re-create a comforting and comfortable image of Americans in a world simplified into the binary distinctions (right/wrong, good/evil) that have become central to our nostalgic retellings of the Cold War.

The Coldest City

The chapter examines the way the Cold War has been historicized in the mode of films like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Bridge of Spies but also how in other texts it has increasingly been filtered through the lens of nostalgic pop-culture referents. The locations are not simply backdrops but active signifiers, the characters less archetypes than reassembled studies in cinematic RPGs, the soundtracks no longer sombre diegesis but more a mix-tape of your favorite hit songs. This chapter, therefore, argues that, over the course of the 2010s, from Tinker Tailor to Atomic Blonde, art as the unconscious face of politics has never been more important. Reminiscence has thus shifted from a mode of nimble historical furnishings to one that contains a jumble of ideological contradictions designed to accentuate–and critique–the reassembled Cold War mentality of the Trump-Putin age.

“Your Body Belongs to the State”

Focusing on Atomic Blonde and Red Sparrow, the chapter explores the familiar forms of dehumanization invoked to reinforce the inherent othering of the rival nation, as well as how Hollywood interpolates the ostensibly progressive image of the self-reliant female action hero in working to shore up perceptions of institutions such as the CIA (with its long and ongoing record of collusion with some of the most reactionary militant and political groups across the globe). The chapter examines these two films within the context of the broader resurgence of Cold War imagery and ideology in contemporary Hollywood.