Allen Smithee specializes in the mediocre. He is versatile. He is prolific. And he doesn't exist. From 1969 until 1999, Allen Smithee was the pseudonym adopted by Hollywood directors when they wished not to be associated with films ostensibly of their making . Encompassing over fifty films of various stripes -- B movies, sequels, music videos, made-for-TV movies -- Smithee's three decades of work affords the authors of this volume a unique opportunity to reassess the claims of auteurism, both in its traditional guise and in the more commodified form it currently assumes. Sometimes treating Smithee as an auteur in much the same way critics and scholars have treated directors as diverse as Douglas Sirk, Abbas Kiarostami, and Quentin Tarantino, the contributors reclaim new possibilities for auteurist filmmaking and film studies, even as they show what an empty display it has recently become. In accounting for this change, the essays in this volume employ innovative theories of authorship to recapture the subversive effect that auteurism once enjoyed. Thus the Smithee name becomes part of a larger discussion of the economics and history of pseudonyms in filmmaking -- notably in the blacklist of the 1950s -- as well as an opportunity to employ Jacques Derrida's theory of the signature to recover obscured economic and historic contexts within Smithee's films. Unique in its focus, innovative in its approach, Directed by Allen Smithee argues that it is precisely through throwaway films such as Smithee's that recent Hollywood cinema can best be studied.

Allen Smithee specializes in the mediocre. He is versatile. He is prolific. And he doesn't exist. From 1969 until 1999, Allen Smithee was the pseudonym adopted by Hollywood directors when they wished not to be associated with films ostensibly of their making . Encompassing over fifty films of various stripes -- B movies, sequels, music videos, made-for-TV movies -- Smithee's three decades of work affords the authors of this volume a unique opportunity to reassess the claims of auteurism, both in its traditional guise and in the more commodified form it currently assumes. Sometimes treating Smithee as an auteur in much the same way critics and scholars have treated directors as diverse as Douglas Sirk, Abbas Kiarostami, and Quentin Tarantino, the contributors reclaim new possibilities for auteurist filmmaking and film studies, even as they show what an empty display it has recently become. In accounting for this change, the essays in this volume employ innovative theories of authorship to recapture the subversive effect that auteurism once enjoyed. Thus the Smithee name becomes part of a larger discussion of the economics and history of pseudonyms in filmmaking -- notably in the blacklist of the 1950s -- as well as an opportunity to employ Jacques Derrida's theory of the signature to recover obscured economic and historic contexts within Smithee's films. Unique in its focus, innovative in its approach, Directed by Allen Smithee argues that it is precisely through throwaway films such as Smithee's that recent Hollywood cinema can best be studied.

Improper Names offers a genealogy and theory of the “improper name,” which author Marco Deseriis defines as the adoption of the same pseudonym by organized collectives, affinity groups, and individual authors. Although such names are often invented to pursue a specific social or political agenda, they are soon appropriated for different and sometimes diverging purposes. This book examines the tension arising from struggles for control of a pseudonym’s symbolic power. Deseriis provides five fascinating and widely varying case studies. Ned Ludd was the legendary and eponymous leader of the English Luddites, textile workers who threatened the destruction of industrial machinery and then advanced a variety of economic and political demands. Alan Smithee—an alias coined by Hollywood film directors in 1969 in order to disown films that were recut by producers—became a contested signature and was therefore no longer effective to signal prevarication to Hollywood insiders. Monty Cantsin was an “open pop star” created by U.S. and Canadian artists in the late 1970s to critique bourgeois notions of authorship, but its communal character was compromised by excessive identification with individual users of the name. The Italian media activists calling themselves Luther Blissett, aware of the Cantsin experience, implemented measures to prevent individuals from assuming the alias, which was used to author media pranks, sell apocryphal manuscripts to publishers, fabricate artists and artworks, and author best-selling novels. The longest chapter here is devoted to the contemporary “hacktivist” group known as Anonymous, which protests censorship and restricted access to information and information technologies. After delving into a rich philosophical debate on community among those who have nothing in common, the book concludes with a reflection on how the politics of improper names affects present-day anticapitalist social movements such as Occupy and 15-M.

Psychoanalytic theory has been the subject of attacks from philosophers, cultural critics and scientists who have questioned the cogency of its reasoning as well as the soundness of its premises. Nevertheless, when used to shed light on horror cinema, psychoanalysis in its various forms has proven to be a fruitful and provocative interpretative tool. This volume seeks to find the proper place of psychoanalytic thought in critical discussion of cinema in a series of essays that debate its legitimacy, utility and validity as applied to the horror genre. It distinguishes itself from previous work in this area through the self-consciousness with which psychoanalytic concepts are employed and the theorization that coexists with interpretations of particular horror films and subgenres.

The director's authorial role in filmmaking--the extent to which a film reflects his or her individual style and creative vision--has been much debated among film critics and scholars for decades. Drawing on generations of criticism, this study describes how the designation "auteur" has gone from stylistic criterion to product label--in what has always been an essentially collaborative industry. Examining the controversy in regard to Hollywood directors, the author compares directors and would-be auteurs of the classic studio system with those of contemporary Hollywood and its new climate of cultural entrepreneurship.

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.

In Only the Lonely (1991), Ally Sheedy appeases prospective mother-in-law Maureen O'Hara by going along to see the 1939 film How Green Was My Valley--starring Maureen O'Hara. Richard LaGravenese, slighted by critic Gene Siskel over his screenplay for The Fisher King (1991) wrote an unsavory character named Siskel into The Ref (1994). Movies and television shows often feature inside jokes. Sometimes there are characters named after crew members. Directors are often featured in cameo appearances--Alfred Hitchcock's silhouette can be seen in Family Plot (1976), for example. This work catalogs such occurrences. Each entry includes the title of the film or show, year of release, and a full description of the in-joke.