This is an examination of the relationship between narrative style and sexual politics. The book probes the political and sexual ramifications of fascism and cinema, marriage and the couple, romantic love and representations of women, race and gender in contemporary films from the United States, Europe and Japan. Looking closely at the work of Leo McCarey and Jacques Rivette, and generation X films such as Before Sunrise, Wood finds that what is most important is not these films' record of another time and place, but the light they can throw on contemporary cultural situations. Wood's central concern is the ways in which films relate to sexual politics and the organization within our culture of gender and sexuality.