ReFocus: The Films of Preston Sturges
Title | ReFocus: The Films of Preston Sturges PDF eBook |
Author | Jaeckle Jeff Jaeckle |
Publisher | Edinburgh University Press |
Pages | 493 |
Release | 2015-10-08 |
Genre | Performing Arts |
ISBN | 1474406572 |
Director, screenwriter and comic genius, Preston Sturges has been an influence on filmmakers ranging from Orson Welles to the Coen brothers. The first person to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, he wrote and directed some of the most bizarre, controversial, and downright hilarious comedies of the 1940s, including Sullivan's Travels and Hail the Conquering Hero. He may be the most talented Hollywood filmmaker yet to receive the critical recognition he deserves. The Films of Preston Sturges is a pioneering collection of essays by world-famous scholars that chart Sturges' contributions to Hollywood cinema, revealing his pivotal status as an early writer-director, exploring his inimitable style, and making a bold case for his ongoing influence today. Reawakening interest in this filmmaker's life and works, this book will remind readers why Sturges' movies remain not only immensely enjoyable, but of great cultural significance as well.
ReFocus: The Films of Preston Sturges
Title | ReFocus: The Films of Preston Sturges PDF eBook |
Author | Jeff Jaeckle |
Publisher | Edinburgh University Press |
Pages | 338 |
Release | 2015-10-08 |
Genre | Performing Arts |
ISBN | 1474406564 |
This first collection of critical essays on Preston Sturges-director, screenwriter, comic genius of Hollywood-reawakens interest in the filmmaker's life and works and reminds readers why his movies continue to be culturally significant and immensely enjoyable.
ReFocus: The Films of Kelly Reichardt
Title | ReFocus: The Films of Kelly Reichardt PDF eBook |
Author | E. Dawn Hall |
Publisher | Edinburgh University Press |
Pages | 170 |
Release | 2018-03-07 |
Genre | Performing Arts |
ISBN | 1474411134 |
In this close reading of her films and production methods, E. Dawn Hall defines Reichardt's auteur characteristics, arguing that she offers a contemporary and sustainable model for independent filmmakers in America.
Crooked, but Never Common
Title | Crooked, but Never Common PDF eBook |
Author | Stuart Klawans |
Publisher | Columbia University Press |
Pages | 174 |
Release | 2023-01-10 |
Genre | Performing Arts |
ISBN | 023155690X |
In a burst of creativity unmatched in Hollywood history, Preston Sturges directed a string of all-time classic comedies from 1939 through 1948—The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels, The Palm Beach Story, and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek among them—all from screenplays he alone had written. Cynical and sophisticated, romantic and sexually frank, crazily breakneck and endlessly witty, his movies continue to influence filmmakers and remain popular to this day. Yet despite this acclaim, Sturges’s achievements remain underappreciated: he is too often categorized as a dialogue writer and plot engineer more than a director, or belittled as an irresponsible spinner of laughs. In Crooked, but Never Common, Stuart Klawans combines a critic’s insight and a fan’s enthusiasm to offer deeper ways to think about and enjoy Sturges’s work. He provides an in-depth appreciation of all ten of the writer-director’s major movies, presenting Sturges as a filmmaker whose work balanced slapstick and social critique, American and European traditions, and cynicism and affection for his characters. Tugging at loose threads—discontinuities, puzzles, and allusions that have dangled in plain sight—and putting the films into a broader cultural context, Klawans reveals structures, motives, and meanings underlying the uproarious pleasures of Sturges’s movies. In this new light, Sturges emerges at last as one of the truly great filmmakers—and funnier than ever.
ReFocus: The Films of Elaine May
Title | ReFocus: The Films of Elaine May PDF eBook |
Author | Alexandra Heller-Nicholas |
Publisher | Edinburgh University Press |
Pages | 264 |
Release | 2019-06-24 |
Genre | Performing Arts |
ISBN | 1474440207 |
Spanning from obscurity to notoriety, the films of director, screenwriter, actor and comic Elaine May have recently experienced a long-overdue renaissance. Although she made only four films - A New Leaf (1971), The Heartbreak Kid (1972), Mikey and Nicky (1976) and Ishtar (1987) - and never reached the level of acclaim of her frequent collaborator Mike Nichols, May's work is as enigmatic, sophisticated and unceasingly fascinating as her own complicated, reluctant star persona. This collection focuses both on the films she has directed, and also emphasises her work with other high profile collaborators such as John Cassavetes, Warren Beatty and Otto Preminger.
Hollywood's Artists
Title | Hollywood's Artists PDF eBook |
Author | Virginia Wright Wexman |
Publisher | Columbia University Press |
Pages | 191 |
Release | 2020-07-21 |
Genre | Performing Arts |
ISBN | 0231551436 |
Today, the director is considered the leading artistic force behind a film. The production of a Hollywood movie requires the labor of many people, from screenwriters and editors to cinematographers and boom operators, but the director as author of the film overshadows them all. How did this concept of the director become so deeply ingrained in our understanding of cinema? In Hollywood’s Artists, Virginia Wright Wexman offers a groundbreaking history of how movie directors became cinematic auteurs that reveals and pinpoints the influence of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). Guided by Frank Capra’s mantra “one man, one film,” the Guild has portrayed its director-members as the creators responsible for turning Hollywood entertainment into cinematic art. Wexman details how the DGA differentiated itself from other industry unions, focusing on issues of status and creative control as opposed to bread-and-butter concerns like wages and working conditions. She also traces the Guild’s struggle for creative and legal power, exploring subjects from the language of on-screen credits to the House Un-American Activities Committee’s investigations of the movie industry. Wexman emphasizes the gendered nature of images of the great director, demonstrating how the DGA promoted the idea of the director as a masculine hero. Drawing on a broad array of archival sources, interviews, and theoretical and sociological insight, Hollywood’s Artists sheds new light on the ways in which the Directors Guild of America has shaped the role and image of directors both within the Hollywood system and in the culture at large.
After "Happily Ever After"
Title | After "Happily Ever After" PDF eBook |
Author | Maria San Filippo |
Publisher | Wayne State University Press |
Pages | 343 |
Release | 2021-05-18 |
Genre | Performing Arts |
ISBN | 0814346758 |
This volume is intended for all readers with an interest in film, media, and gender studies.