Synopses & Reviews
From beloved bad-boy to cool and captivating maverick, Johnny Depp has inspired media intrigue and has been the source of international acclaim since the early 1990s. He has attracted attention for his eccentric image, his accidental acting career, his beguiling good looks, and his quirky charm. In Johnny Depp Starts Here, film scholar Murray Pomerance explores our fascination with Depp, his riddling complexity, and his meaning for our culture. Moving beyond the actor's engaging and inscrutable private life, Pomerance focuses on his enigmatic screen performances from A Nightmare on Elm Street to Secret Window.
The actor's image is studied in terms of its ambiguities and its many strange nuances: Depp's ethnicity, his smoking, his tranquility, his unceasing motion, his links to the Gothic, the Beats, Simone de Beauvoir, the history of rationality, Impressionist painting, and more. In a series of treatments of his key roles, including Rafael in The Brave, Bon Bon in Before Night Falls, Jack Kerouac in The Source, and the long list of acclaimed performances from Gilbert Grape to Cap'n Jack Sparrow, we learn of Johnny onscreen in terms of male sexuality, space travel, optical experience, nineteenth-century American capitalism, Orientalism, the vulnerability of performance, the perils of sleep, comedy, the myth of the West, Scrooge McDuck, Frantois Truffaut, and more.
Johnny's face, Johnny's gaze, Johnny's aging, and Johnny's understatement are shown to be inextricably linked to our own desperate need to plumb performance, style, and screen for a grounding of reality in this ever-accelerating world of fragmentation and insecurity. Both deeply intriguing and perpetually elusive, Depp is revealed as the central screen performer of the contemporary age, the symbol of performance itself.
No thinker has meditated on Johnny Depp this way before-and surely not in a manner worthy of the object of scrutiny.
Review
andquot;Everett assembles a coterie of capable scholars to investigate changes in society, popular culture, and stardom during the 1990s. Several chapters shine with insight. Everett's chapter on the talents of the iconoclastic Johnny Depp delights as it instructs. Recommended.andquot;
Review
andquot;With an all-star lineup of contributors, A Little Solitaire casts important new light on filmmaker John Frankenheimer, his generation, and his era in American film history.andquot;
Review
andquot;Pomerance and Palmer's collection could serve as a model for scholarly books on directors. Highly recommended.andquot;
Synopsis
Shining in Shadows examines a wide range of Hollywood icons from a turbulent decade for the film industry and for America itself. Perhaps reflecting our own cultural fragmentation and uncertainty, Hollywoodandrsquo;s star personas sent mixed messages about Americansandrsquo; identities and ideals. With a multigenerational, international cast of stars, this collection presents a fascinating composite portrait of Hollywood stardom today.
Synopsis
In the 2000s, new technologies transformed the experiences of movie-going and movie-making, giving us the first generation of stars to be just as famous on the computer screen as on the silver screen.
Shining in Shadows examines a wide range of Hollywood icons from a turbulent decade for the film industry and for America itself. Perhaps reflecting our own cultural fragmentation and uncertainty, Hollywoodandrsquo;s star personas sent mixed messages about Americansandrsquo; identities and ideals. Disheveled men-children like Will Ferrell and Jack Black shared the multiplex with debonair old-Hollywood standbys like George Clooney and Morgan Freeman. Iconic roles for women ranged from Renee Zellwegerandrsquo;s dithering romantics to Tina Feyandrsquo;s neurotic professionals to Hilary Swankandrsquo;s vulnerable boyish characters. And in this age of reality TV and TMZ, stars like Jennifer Aniston and andldquo;Brangelinaandrdquo; became more famous for their real-life romantic dramasandmdash;at the same time that former tabloid fixtures like Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. reinvented themselves as dependable leading men. With a multigenerational, international cast of stars, this collection presents a fascinating composite portrait of Hollywood stardom today.
Synopsis
New York, more than any other city, has held a special fascination for filmmakers and viewers. In every decade of Hollywood filmmaking, artists of the screen have fixated upon this fascinating place for its tensions and promises, dazzling illumination and fearsome darkness.
The glittering skyscrapers of such films as On the Town have shadowed the characteristic seedy streets in which desperate, passionate stories have played out-as in Scandal Sheet and The Pawnbroker. In other films, the city is a cauldron of bright lights, technology, empire, egotism, fear, hunger, and change--the scenic epitome of America in the modern age.
From Street Scene and Breakfast at Tiffany's to Rosemary's Baby, The Warriors, and 25th Hour, the sixteen essays in this book explore the cinematic representation of New York as a city of experience, as a locus of ideographic characters and spaces, as a city of moves and traps, and as a site of allurement and danger. Contributors consider the work of Woody Allen, Blake Edwards, Alfred Hitchcock, Gregory La Cava, Spike Lee, Sidney Lumet, Vincente Minnelli, Roman Polanski, Martin Scorsese, Andy Warhol, and numerous others.
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Synopsis
In the 1990s, American civil society got upended and reordered as many social, cultural, political, and economic institutions were changed forever. Pretty People examines a wide range of Hollywood icons who reflect how stardom in that decade was transformed as the nation itself, signaling significant changes to familiar ideas about gender, race, ethnicity, age, class, sexuality, and nationality.
Synopsis
The constellation of Hollywood stars burned brightly in the 1950s, even as the industry fell on hard economic times. Major artists of the 1940s--James Stewart, Jerry Lewis, and Gregory Peck--continued to exert a magical appeal but the younger generation of moviegoers was soon enthralled by an emerging cast, led by James Dean and Marlon Brando. They, among others, ushered in a provocative acting style, andquot;the Method,andquot; bringing hard-edged, realistic performances to the screen. Adult-oriented small-budget dramas were ideal showcases for Method actors, startlingly realized when Brando seized the screen in On the Waterfront. But, with competition from television looming, Hollywood also featured film-making of epic proportion--Ben-Hur and other cinema wonders rode onto the screen with amazing spectacle, making stars of physically impressive performers such as Charlton Heston.
Larger Than Life offers a comprehensive view of the star system in 1950s Hollywood and also in-depth discussions of the decade's major stars, including Montgomery Clift, Judy Holliday, Jerry Lewis, James Mason, Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, Jayne Mansfield, and Audrey Hepburn.
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
Little Solitaire offers the only multidisciplinary critical account of Frankenheimer's oeuvre. Especially emphasized is his deep and passionate engagement with national politics and the irrepressible need of human beings to assert their rights and individuality in the face of organizations that would reduce them to silence and anonymity.
Synopsis
Think about some commercially successful film masterpieces--The Manchurian Candidate. Seven Days in May. Seconds. Then consider some lesser known, yet equally compelling cinematic achievements--The Fixer. The Gypsy Moths. Path to War. These triumphs are the work of the best known and most highly regarded Hollywood director to emerge from live TV drama in the 1950s--five-time Emmy-award-winner John Frankenheimer.
Although Frankenheimer was a pioneer in the genre of political thrillers who embraced the antimodernist critique of contemporary society, some of his later films did not receive the attention they deserved. Many claimed that at a midpoint in his career he had lost his touch. World-renowned film scholars put this myth to rest in A Little Solitaire, which offers the only multidisciplinary critical account of Frankenheimer's oeuvre. Especially emphasized is his deep and passionate engagement with national politics and the irrepressible need of human beings to assert their rights and individuality in the face of organizations that would reduce them to silence and anonymity.
Synopsis
Film scholar Murray Pomerance presents a series of fascinating meditations on six films directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock, a master of the cinema. Two of the films are extraordinarily famous and have been seen––and misunderstood––countless times: North by Northwest and Vertigo. Two others, Marnie and Torn Curtain, have been mostly disregarded by viewers and critics or considered to be colossal mistakes, while two others, Spellbound and I Confess, have received almost no critical attention at all.
In An Eye for Hitchcock, these movies are seen in a striking new way. Pomerance takes us deep into the structure of Hitchcock’s vision and his screen architecture, revealing key elements that have never been written about before. Pomerance also clearly reveals the link between Hitchcock’s work and a wide range of thinkers and artists in other fields, thereby offering viewers of Hitchcock’s films the rare opportunity to see them in an entirely new light.
About the Author
Murray Pomerance is a professor in the department of sociology at Ryerson University and the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including Johnny Depp Lives Here (Rutgers University Press). He is the coeditor of the Star Decades and Screen Decades series (Rutgers University Press). R. Barton Palmer is the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University, where he directs the film studies program. He is the author, editor, or general editor of numerous books including Larger than Life: Movie Stars of the 1950s (Rutgers University Press).
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Why Don't You Pass the Time by Playing a Little Solitaire? by R. Barton Palmer and Murray Pomerance
Part I. Thrills
1. Murdered Souls, Conspiratorial Cabals: Frankenheimer's Paranoia Films, by David Sterritt
2. The Manchurian Candidate: Compromised Agency and Uncertain Causality, by Charles Ramirez Berg
3. Stealth, Sexuality, and Cult Status in The Manchurian Candidate and Seconds, by Rebecca Bell-Metereau
4. The Train: John Frankenheimer's andquot;Rape of Europaandquot;, by Matthew H. Bernstein
5. Action and Abstraction in Ronin, by Stephen Prince
Part II. Politics
6. Late Frankenheimer/Political Frankenheimer, by Douglas McFarland
7. John Frankenheimer's andquot;War on Terrorandquot;, by Corey K. Creekmur
8. The Burning Season: Environmentalism versus Progress? by Robin L. Murray
9. Pictures and Prizes: Le Grand Prix de Rome and Grand Prix, by Victoria Duckett
Part III. Families
10. Crashing In: Birdman of Alcatraz, by Tom Conley
11. Walking the Line with the Fille Fatale, by Linda Ruth Williams
12. Live TV, Filmed Theater, and the New Hollywood: John Frankenheimer's The Iceman Cometh, by James Morrison
13. Ashes, Ashes: Structuring Emptiness in All Fall Down, by Murray Pomerance
Part IV. Secrets
14. An American in Paris: John Frankenheimer's Impossible Object, by Jerry Mosher
15. Shot from the Sky: The Gypsy Moths and the End of Something, by Dennis Bingham
16. Frankenheimer and the Science Fiction/Horror Film, by Christine Cornea
17. The Fixer: A Jew Who Could Be Any Man, Any Time, Anywhere, by R. Barton Palmer
18. Jonah, by Bill Krohn
John Frankenheimer's Directorial Career: A Chronology
Works Cited and Consulted
Contributors
Index
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