"An Aggregate of Every Moment Before"

Links between family origins, creative developments and America's cultural superstructure are deeply engraved in Sean Penn's life. In this book, the author examines how these mental links and their fractures also manifest themselves in Penn's cinematic works as a director, which academia has devoted very little attention to until now. Thereby, he examines three motifs, which he emphasizes as central to that work: the concept of Americans' collective roots in myths, traditions and images of time-conditioned circumstances, the concept of family roots and that of individual roots, which means Penn's strong relationship to works from other artists (among them, films directed by John Cassavetes, poems written by Charles Bukowski, photographs taken by Dennis Hopper and songs written by Bruce Springsteen). Stylistically, the author moves between essay and film analysis; his research focuses are auteur films, film and surrealism, European cinema since 1945 and New Hollywood.