Hollywood Outsiders

Hollywood Outsiders PDF Author: Anne Morey
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816637331
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
An innovative approach to the relationship between filmmaking and society during Hollywood's golden age. The 1910s and 1920s witnessed the inception of a particular brand of negotiation between filmdom and its public in the United States. Hollywood, its proponents, and its critics sought to establish new connections between audience and industry, suggesting means by which Hollywood outsiders could become insiders. Hollywood Outsiders looks at how four disparate entities--the Palmer Photoplay correspondence school of screenwriting, juvenile series fiction about youngsters involved in the film industry, film appreciation and character education programs for high school students, and Catholic and Protestant efforts to use and influence filmmaking--conceived of these connections, and thus of the relationship of Hollywood to the individual and society. Anne Morey's exploration of the diverse discourses generated by these different conjunctions leads to a fresh and compelling interpretation of Hollywood's place in American cultural history. In its analysis of how four distinct groups, each addressing constituencies of various ages and degrees of social authority, defined their interest in the film industry, Hollywood Outsiders combines concrete discussions of cultural politics with a broader argument about how outsiders viewed the film industry as a vehicle of self-validation and of democratic ideals.

Hollywood Outsiders

Hollywood Outsiders PDF Author: Anne Morey
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816637331
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Get Book

Book Description
An innovative approach to the relationship between filmmaking and society during Hollywood's golden age. The 1910s and 1920s witnessed the inception of a particular brand of negotiation between filmdom and its public in the United States. Hollywood, its proponents, and its critics sought to establish new connections between audience and industry, suggesting means by which Hollywood outsiders could become insiders. Hollywood Outsiders looks at how four disparate entities--the Palmer Photoplay correspondence school of screenwriting, juvenile series fiction about youngsters involved in the film industry, film appreciation and character education programs for high school students, and Catholic and Protestant efforts to use and influence filmmaking--conceived of these connections, and thus of the relationship of Hollywood to the individual and society. Anne Morey's exploration of the diverse discourses generated by these different conjunctions leads to a fresh and compelling interpretation of Hollywood's place in American cultural history. In its analysis of how four distinct groups, each addressing constituencies of various ages and degrees of social authority, defined their interest in the film industry, Hollywood Outsiders combines concrete discussions of cultural politics with a broader argument about how outsiders viewed the film industry as a vehicle of self-validation and of democratic ideals.

Hollywood Outsiders

Hollywood Outsiders PDF Author: Anne Morey
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816637324
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
An innovative approach to the relationship between filmmaking and society during Hollywood's golden age. The 1910s and 1920s witnessed the inception of a particular brand of negotiation between filmdom and its public in the United States. Hollywood, its proponents, and its critics sought to establish new connections between audience and industry, suggesting means by which Hollywood outsiders could become insiders. Hollywood Outsiders looks at how four disparate entities--the Palmer Photoplay correspondence school of screenwriting, juvenile series fiction about youngsters involved in the film industry, film appreciation and character education programs for high school students, and Catholic and Protestant efforts to use and influence filmmaking--conceived of these connections, and thus of the relationship of Hollywood to the individual and society. Anne Morey's exploration of the diverse discourses generated by these different conjunctions leads to a fresh and compelling interpretation of Hollywood's place in American cultural history. In its analysis of how four distinct groups, each addressing constituencies of various ages and degrees of social authority, defined their interest in the film industry, Hollywood Outsiders combines concrete discussions of cultural politics with a broader argument about how outsiders viewed the film industry as a vehicle of self-validation and of democratic ideals.

Cinema of Outsiders

Cinema of Outsiders PDF Author: Emanuel Levy
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814752896
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 601

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Book Description
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller The most important development in American culture of the last two decades is the emergence of independent cinema as a viable alternative to Hollywood. Indeed, while Hollywood's studios devote much of their time and energy to churning out big-budget, star-studded event movies, a renegade independent cinema that challenges mainstream fare continues to flourish with strong critical support and loyal audiences. Cinema of Outsiders is the first and only comprehensive chronicle of contemporary independent movies from the late 1970s up to the present. From the hip, audacious early works of maverick David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, and Spike Lee, to the contemporary Oscar-winning success of indie dynamos, such as the Coen brothers (Fargo), Quentin Tarentino (Pulp Fiction), and Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade), Levy describes in a lucid and accessible manner the innovation and diversity of American indies in theme, sensibility, and style. Documenting the socio-economic, political and artistic forces that led to the rise of American independent film, Cinema of Outsiders depicts the pivotal role of indie guru Robert Redford and his Sundance Film Festival in creating a showcase for indies, the function of film schools in supplying talent, and the continuous tension between indies and Hollywood as two distinct industries with their own structure, finance, talent and audience. Levy describes the major cycles in the indie film movement: regional cinema, the New York school of film, African-American, Asian American, gay and lesbian, and movies made by women. Based on exhaustive research of over 1,000 movies made between 1977 and 1999, Levy evaluates some 200 quintessential indies, including Choose Me, Stranger Than Paradise, Blood Simple, Blue Velvet, Desperately Seeking Susan, Slacker, Poison, Reservoir Dogs, Gas Food Lodging, Menace II Society, Clerks, In the Company of Men, Chasing Amy, The Apostle, The Opposite of Sex, and Happiness. Cinema of Outsiders reveals the artistic and political impact of bold and provocative independent movies in displaying the cinema of "outsiders"-the cinema of the "other America."

Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties

Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties PDF Author: Foster Hirsch
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307958930
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 702

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Book Description
A fascinating look at Hollywood’s most turbulent decade and the demise of the studio system—set against the boom of the post–World War II years, the Cold War, and the atomic age—and the movies that reflected the seismic shifts Hollywood in the 1950s was a period when the film industry both set conventions and broke norms and traditions—from Cinerama, CinemaScope, and VistaVision to the epic film and lavish musical. It was a decade that saw the rise of the anti-hero; the smoldering, the hidden, and the unspoken; teenagers gone wild in the streets; the sacred and the profane; the revolution of the Method; the socially conscious; the implosion of the studios; the end of the production code; and the invasion of the ultimate body snatcher: the “small screen” television. Here is Eisenhower’s America—seemingly complacent, conformity-ridden revealed in Vincente Minnelli’s Father of the Bride, Walt Disney’s Cinderella, and Brigadoon, among others. And here is its darkening, resonant landscape, beset by conflict, discontent, and anxiety (The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Asphalt Jungle, A Place in the Sun, Touch of Evil, It Came From Outer Space) . . . an America on the verge of cultural, political and sexual revolt, busting up and breaking out (East of Eden, From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, Sweet Smell of Success, The Wild One, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Jailhouse Rock). An important, riveting look at our nation at its peak as a world power and at the political, cultural, sexual upheavals it endured, reflected and explored in the quintessential American art form.

Shock Value

Shock Value PDF Author: Jason Zinoman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101516968
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
An enormously entertaining account of the gifted and eccentric directors who gave us the golden age of modern horror in the 1970s, bringing a new brand of politics and gritty realism to the genre. Much has been written about the storied New Hollywood of the 1970s, but at the same time as Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola were making their first classic movies, a parallel universe of directors gave birth to the modern horror film-aggressive, raw, and utterly original. Based on unprecedented access to the genre's major players, The New York Times's critic Jason Zinoman's Shock Value delivers the first definitive account of horror's golden age. By the late 1960s, horror was stuck in the past, confined mostly to drive-in theaters and exploitation houses, and shunned by critics. Shock Value tells the unlikely story of how the much-disparaged horror film became an ambitious art form while also conquering the multiplex. Directors such as Wes Craven, Roman Polanski, John Carpenter, and Brian De Palma- counterculture types operating largely outside the confines of Hollywood-revolutionized the genre, exploding taboos and bringing a gritty aesthetic, confrontational style, and political edge to horror. Zinoman recounts how these directors produced such classics as Rosemary's Baby, Carrie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween, creating a template for horror that has been imitated relentlessly but whose originality has rarely been matched. This new kind of film dispensed with the old vampires and werewolves and instead assaulted audiences with portraits of serial killers, the dark side of suburbia, and a brand of nihilistic violence that had never been seen before. Shock Value tells the improbable stories behind the making of these movies, which were often directed by obsessive and insecure young men working on shoestring budgets, were funded by sketchy investors, and starred porn stars. But once The Exorcist became the highest grossing film in America, Hollywood took notice. The classic horror films of the 1970s have now spawned a billion-dollar industry, but they have also penetrated deep into the American consciousness. Quite literally, Zinoman reveals, these movies have taught us what to be afraid of. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of the most important artists in horror, Shock Value is an enthralling and personality-driven account of an overlooked but hugely influential golden age in American film.

The Outsiders

The Outsiders PDF Author: Ann M. Ciasullo
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000861899
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 89

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Book Description
This volume traces the unique trajectory of The Outsiders, from beloved book to beloved movie. Based on S.E. Hinton’s landmark novel, Coppola’s film adaptation tells the story of the Greasers, a gang of working-class boys yearning for security, love, and acceptance in a world ruled by their rival gang, the rich Socs. The Outsiders: Adolescent Tenderness and Staying Gold explores the cultural impact of Hinton’s book, the process by which Coppola made the film, the film’s melodramatic components, the marketing of the movie to a young female audience, and the nostalgia industry that has emerged around it in recent decades, thereby illuminating how The Outsiders stands apart from other teen films of the 1980s. In its depiction of the emotional rather than sexual lives of young men on film and its recognition of the desires of teen girls as an audience, The Outsiders distinguishes itself from the standard teen fare of the era. With seriousness and sincerity, Coppola’s film captures the essence of the oft-repeated, timeless message of the story: ‘Stay gold.’ This volume engages with a wide range of disciplinary approaches—film studies, gender studies, and literary and cultural studies—in order to distinguish The Outsiders as the significant contribution to youth culture that it was in the early 1980s and continues to be in the twenty-first century. The book fills a gap in existing scholarship on youth culture and is ideal for scholars, students, and teachers in youth cultures, young adult literature, film studies, cultural studies, and gender studies.

Left of Hollywood

Left of Hollywood PDF Author: Chris Robé
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292749902
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
In the 1930s as the capitalist system faltered, many in the United States turned to the political Left. Hollywood, so deeply embedded in capitalism, was not immune to this shift. Left of Hollywood offers the first book-length study of Depression-era Left film theory and criticism in the United States. Robé studies the development of this theory and criticism over the course of the 1930s, as artists and intellectuals formed alliances in order to establish an engaged political film movement that aspired toward a popular cinema of social change. Combining extensive archival research with careful close analysis of films, Robé explores the origins of this radical social formation of U.S. Left film culture. Grounding his arguments in the surrounding contexts and aesthetics of a few films in particular—Sergei Eisenstein's Que Viva Mexico!, Fritz Lang's Fury, William Dieterle's Juarez, and Jean Renoir's La Marseillaise—Robé focuses on how film theorists and critics sought to foster audiences who might push both film culture and larger social practices in more progressive directions. Turning at one point to anti-lynching films, Robé discusses how these movies united black and white film critics, forging an alliance of writers who championed not only critical spectatorship but also the public support of racial equality. Yet, despite a stated interest in forging more egalitarian social relations, gender bias was endemic in Left criticism of the era, and female-centered films were regularly discounted. Thus Robé provides an in-depth examination of this overlooked shortcoming of U.S. Left film criticism and theory.

The Mind-Game Film

The Mind-Game Film PDF Author: Thomas Elsaesser
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135884048
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
This book represents the culmination of Thomas Elsaesser’s intense and passionate thinking about the Hollywood mind-game film from the previous two decades. In order to answer what the mind-game film is, why they exist, and how they function, Elsaesser maps the industrial-institutional challenges and constraints facing Hollywood, and the broader philosophic horizon within which American cinema thrives today. He demonstrates how the ‘Persistence of Hollywood’ continues as it has adapted to include new twists and turns, as well as revisions of past concerns, as film moves through the 21st century. Through examples such as Minority Report, Mulholland Drive, Source Code, and Back to the Future, Elsaesser explores how mind-game films challenge us and play games with our perception of reality, creating skepticism and (self-) doubt. He also highlights the mind-game film's tendency to intervene in a complex fashion in the political moment by questioning the dominant power’s intent to program both body and mind alike. Prescient and compelling, The Mind-Game Film will appeal to students, scholars, and enthusiasts of media studies, film studies, philosophy, and politics.

Lois Weber in Early Hollywood

Lois Weber in Early Hollywood PDF Author: Shelley Stamp
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520241525
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Among early HollywoodÕs most renowned filmmakers, Lois Weber was considered one of the eraÕs Òthree great mindsÓ alongside D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Despite her accomplishments, Weber has been marginalized in relation to her contemporaries, who have long been recognized as fathers of American cinema. Drawing on a range of materials untapped by previous historians, Shelley Stamp offers the first comprehensive study of WeberÕs remarkable career as director, screenwriter, and actress. Lois Weber in Early Hollywood provides compelling evidence of the extraordinary role that women played in shaping American movie culture. Weber made films on capital punishment, contraception, poverty, and addiction, establishing cinemaÕs power to engage topical issues for popular audiences. Her work grappled with the profound changes in womenÕs lives that unsettled Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century, and her later films include sharp critiques of heterosexual marriage and consumer capitalism. Mentor to many women in the industry, Weber demanded a place at the table in early professional guilds, decrying the limited roles available for women on-screen and in the 1920s protesting the growing climate of hostility toward female directors. Stamp demonstrates how female filmmakers who had played a part in early HollywoodÕs bid for respectability were in the end written out of that industryÕs history. Lois Weber in Early Hollywood is an essential addition to histories of silent cinema, early filmmaking in Los Angeles, and womenÕs contributions to American culture.

Hollywood Be Thy Name

Hollywood Be Thy Name PDF Author: Judith Weisenfeld
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520251008
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
"This is a ground-breaking book. The text is remarkable in its use of MPAA files and studio archives; Weisenfeld uncovers all sorts of side stories that enrich the larger narrative. The writing is clear and concise, and Weisenfeld makes important theoretical interpretations without indulging in difficult jargon. She incorporates both film theory and race theory in graceful, non-obtrusive ways that deepen understanding. This is an outstanding work."—Colleen McDannell, author of Picturing Faith: Photography and the Great Depression