This dissertation examines the key cycle of British and American punk rock musical films, produced from roughly 1978 to 1986. In contrast to the punk music documentaries more visible in critical scholarship, the films I focus on are narrative, and deal with making punk music in a variety of ways. Films such as Jubilee (1978), Breaking Glass (1980), Times Square (1980), Smithereens (1982), Starstruck (1982) and Sid and Nancy (1986) occupy a unique, if thus far neglected, position in film history and film studies.;The dominant critical concept that guides this project is "slip-sync." Playing off the more conventional "lip-sync," the term "slip-sync" designates specific performance sequences in the films, where the punk performer "slips" out of sync with the soundtrack and/or spectacle context, engendering a provocative moment of tension. Exploring in detail the various meanings of these slip-sync performance sequences, I also expand the slip-sync concept to account for other narrative and thematic conflicts, central among these being the punk negotiation between authenticity and inauthenticity.;The first chapter establishes the scope of the project, and how it contributes to film and media studies; the second chapter situates slip-sync theoretically and historically, referring to postmodern theorists and to important precursors in classical, pop and cult musicals. Ensuing chapters discuss major films in detail, moving more or less chronologically and geographically from Britain (1978-1980) to America (1978-1983) to international and Australian productions (1982-1986).;This group of films functions as a lynchpin between the more celebrated early-Seventies and mid-Eighties "New American" independent film movements. More significantly, this punk musical cycle represents a convergence between independent, subversive cinema and the more classical Hollywood or pop musical genre formula. My analytical survey emphasizes the strong female lead performer at the center of most of the films, as well as each film's engagement with gender and race issues. Additionally, I situate my analyses in relation to the broader cultural and political context of the new conservatism, neo-liberalism, and new electronic audio-visual technologies of the 1980s.
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