Synopses & Reviews
In the early days of filmmaking, before many of Hollywoodandrsquo;s elaborate sets and soundstages had been built, it was common for movies to be shot on location. Decades later, Hollywood filmmakers rediscovered the practice of using real locations and documentary footage in their narrative features. Why did this happen? What caused this sudden change?
and#160;
Renowned film scholar R. Barton Palmer answers this question in Shot on Location by exploring the historical, ideological, economic, and technological developments that led Hollywood to head back outside in order to capture footage of real places. His groundbreaking research reveals that wartime newsreels had a massive influence on postwar Hollywood film, although there are key distinctions to be made between these movies and their closest contemporaries, Italian neorealist films. Considering how these practices were used in everything from war movies like Twelve Oandrsquo;Clock High to westerns like The Searchers, Palmer explores how the blurring of the formal boundaries between cinematic journalism and fiction lent a andldquo;reality effectandrdquo; to otherwise implausible stories.
and#160;
Shot on Location describes how the periodandrsquo;s greatest directors, from Alfred Hitchcock to Billy Wilder, increasingly moved beyond the confines of the studio. At the same time, the book acknowledges the collaborative nature of moviemaking, identifying key roles that screenwriters, art designers, location scouts, and editors played in incorporating actual geographical locales and social milieus within a fictional framework. Palmer thus offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how Hollywood transformed the way we view real spaces.and#160;
Review
andquot;In this accessible and engaging history of the moguls who made theand#160;studios successful through sheer force of personality, Dixon does aand#160;terrific job of getting inside the heads of the bosses who built theirand#160;studios into major entertainment factories.andquot;and#160;
Review
andquot;In this book, written with his usual critical acumen, Wheeler Winston Dixonand#160;gives a lucid and penetrating account of the men who ran the oldand#160;Hollywood studio system and of the ultimate decline and fall of theirand#160;empires.andquot;
Review
andquot;Death of the Moguls is an immensely readable, deeply informed survey of a mythic moment in American moviemaking.andquot;
Review
andldquo;A tremendously important advance in our understanding of landscape, cityscape, and place in postwar American cinema, among the most innovative current work in film and media studies, American studies, English literature, and cultural geography.andrdquo;
Review
andquot;Like the tenacious investigators of the post-war semi-documentaries he analyzes (among many other genres and films), Palmer delivers a probing, conceptually sophisticated, multi-faceted, sensitively written account of Hollywoodandrsquo;s return to location shooting. A major achievement that overturns the historical consensus.andquot;
Synopsis
Bringing together original essays by ten respected scholars in the field, American Cinema of the 1950s explores the impact of the cultural environment of this decade on film, and the impact of film on the American cultural milieu. Contributors examine the signature films of the decade, including From Here to Eternity, Sunset Blvd., Singin' in the Rain, Shane, Rear Window, and Rebel Without a Cause, as well as lesser-known but equally compelling films, such as Dial 1119, Mystery Street, Suddenly, Summer Stock, The Last Hunt, and many others.
Synopsis
From cold war hysteria and rampant anticommunist witch hunts to the lure of suburbia, television, and the new consumerism, the 1950s was a decade of sensational commercial possibility coupled with dark nuclear fears and conformist politics. Amid this amalgamation of social, political, and cultural conditions, Hollywood was under siege: from the Justice Department, which pressed for big film companies to divest themselves of their theater holdings; from the middleclass, whose retreat to family entertainment inside the home drastically decreased the filmgoing audience; and from the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was attempting to purge the country of dissenting political views. In this difficult context, however, some of the most talented filmmakers of all time, including John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Vincente Minnelli, Nicholas Ray, and Billy Wilder produced some of their most remarkable work.
Bringing together original essays by ten respected scholars in the field, American Cinema of the 1950s explores the impact of the cultural environment of this decade on film, and the impact of film on the American cultural milieu. Contributors examine the signature films of the decade, including From Here to Eternity, Sunset Blvd., Singin' in the Rain, Shane, Rear Window, and Rebel Without a Cause, as well as lesser-known but equally compelling films, such as Dial 1119, Mystery Street, Suddenly, Summer Stock, The Last Hunt, and many others.
Provocative, engaging, and accessible to general readers as well as scholars, this volume provides a unique lens through which to view the links between film and the prevailing social and historical events of the decade.
Synopsis
Death of the Moguls is a detailed assessment of the last days of the andldquo;rulers of filmandrdquo; from Hollywoodandrsquo;s classical era, covering 20th Century-Fox, Selznick International Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, RKO Radio Pictures, Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, Republic Pictures, Monogram Pictures and Columbia Pictures. Using rare, behind-the-scenes stills, Wheeler Winston Dixon details such game-changing factors as the de Havilland decision, the Consent Decree, how the moguls dealt with their collapsing empires in the era of television, and the end of the conventional studio assembly line to create a compelling narrative of the end of the studio system at each of the Hollywood majors.
Synopsis
Renowned film scholar R. Barton Palmer explores the historical, ideological, economic, and technical developments that led Hollywood filmmakers of the late 1940s and 1950s to increasingly head outside the studio and capture footage of real places. Examining works ranging from
Sunset Blvd. to
The Searchers,
Shot on Location discovers the massive influence that wartime newsreels had on the postwar Hollywood film, as the blurring of the formal boundaries between cinematic journalism and fiction lent a andldquo;reality effectandrdquo; to otherwise implausible stories.and#160;
About the Author
R. BARTON PALMER is the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature and the director of film studies at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. He is the author or editor of more than thirty-five books, including
Larger than Life: Movie Stars of the 1950s (with Murray Pomerance),
andldquo;A Little Solitaireandrdquo;: John Frankenheimer and American Film (with Murray Pomerance), and
Thinking in the Dark: Cinema, Theory, Practice with Murray Pomerance (all by Rutgers University Press).