A study of French film in the inter-war years focusing on women, particularly women singers, and the role they played in shaping a national, populist, Paris-oriented French cinema.
Spectacle is not often considered to be a significant part of the style of ‘classical’ cinema. Indeed, some of the most influential accounts of cinematic classicism define it virtually by the supposed absence of spectacle. Spectacle in ‘Classical’ Cinemas: Musicality and Historicity in the 1930s brings a fresh perspective on the role of the spectacular in classical sound cinema by focusing on one decade of cinema (the 1930s), in two ‘modes’ of filmmaking (musical and historical films), and in two national cinemas (the US and France). This not only brings to light the special rhetorical and affective possibilities offered by spectacular images but refines our understanding of what ‘classical’ cinema is and was.
Summary: "Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination presents for the first time a comparative study of European film set design in the late 1920s and 1930s; based on a wealth of designers ʼ drawings, film stills and archival documents, the book offers a new insight into the development and significance of trans-national artistic collaboration during this period. European cinema from the late 1920s to the late 1930s is famous for its attention to detail in terms of set design and visual effect. Focusing on developments in Britain, France, and Germany, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema provides a comprehensive analysis of the practices, styles, and function of cinematic production design during this period, and its influence on subsequent filmmaking patterns."--Publisher description.
Summary: "Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination presents for the first time a comparative study of European film set design in the late 1920s and 1930s; based on a wealth of designers ʼ drawings, film stills and archival documents, the book offers a new insight into the development and significance of trans-national artistic collaboration during this period. European cinema from the late 1920s to the late 1930s is famous for its attention to detail in terms of set design and visual effect. Focusing on developments in Britain, France, and Germany, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema provides a comprehensive analysis of the practices, styles, and function of cinematic production design during this period, and its influence on subsequent filmmaking patterns."--Publisher description.
Film is made of moments. In its earliest form, the cinema was a moment: mere seconds recorded and projected into the darkness. Even as film has developed into today's complex and intricate medium, it is the brief, temporary and transitory that combines to create the whole. Our memories of films are composed of the moments we deem to be crucial: touchstones for our understanding and appreciation. Moments matter. The 38 specially commissioned essays in Film Moments examine a wide selection of key scenes across a broad spectrum of national cinemas, historical periods and genres, featuring films by renowned auteurs including Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir and Vincente Minnelli and important contemporary directors such as Pedro Costa, Zhang Ke Jia and Quentin Tarantino, addressing films including City Lights, Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Night of the Hunter, Wild Strawberries, 8 1?2, Bonnie and Clyde, Star Wars, Conte d'été, United 93 and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Film Moments provides both an enlightening introduction for students to the diversity of approaches and concerns in the study of film, and a dynamic and vibrant account of key film sequences for anyone interested in enhancing their understanding of cinema.
In Music and Cosmopolitanism, Cristina Magaldi examines music making in a past globalized world. This volume focuses on one city, Rio de Janeiro, and how it became part of a larger world through music and performance. Magaldi describes a process of creating connections beyond national borders, one that is familiar to contemporary city residents, but which was already dominant at the turn of the 20th century, as new technological developments led to alternative ways of making and experiencing music.
Film Music in the Sound Era: A Research and Information Guide offers a comprehensive bibliography of scholarship on music in sound film (1927–2017). Thematically organized sections cover historical studies, studies of musicians and filmmakers, genre studies, theory and aesthetics, and other key aspects of film music studies. Broad coverage of works from around the globe, paired with robust indexes and thorough cross-referencing, make this research guide an invaluable tool for all scholars and students investigating the intersection of music and film. This guide is published in two volumes: Volume 1: Histories, Theories, and Genres covers overviews, historical surveys, theory and criticism, studies of film genres, and case studies of individual films. Volume 2: People, Cultures, and Contexts covers individual people, social and cultural studies, studies of musical genre, pedagogy, and the industry. A complete index is included in each volume.
Long before Edith Piaf sang "La vie en rose," her predecessors took to the stage of the Belle Epoque music hall, singing of female desire, the treachery of men, the harshness of working-class life, and the rough neighborhoods of Paris. The realist singer signaled the emergence of new cultural roles for women as well as shifts in the nature of popular entertainment. This book provides a genealogy of realist performance through analysis of the music hall careers and film roles of Mistinguett, Josephine Baker, Frehel, and Damia. Above all, it offers a fresh interpretation of 1930s French cinema, emphasizing its love affair with popular song and its close connections to the music hall and the cafe-concert. Illustrations.
Star of stage and screen, cultural ambassador, civil rights and political activist--Josephine Baker was defined by the various public roles that made her 50-year career an exemplar of postmodern identity. Her legacy continues to influence modern culture more than 40 years after her death. This new collection of essays interprets Baker's life in the context of modernism, feminism, race, gender and sexuality. The contributors focus on various aspects of her life and career, including her performances and public reception, civil rights efforts, the architecture of her unbuilt house, and her modern-day "afterlife."
Edith Piaf was one of the most greatly loved singers of the twentieth century. From the start of her exceptional career in the 1930s, her waif-like form and heart-wrenching voice endeared her first to the French, then to audiences around the globe. As she moved from her youth singing in the streets to the glamour of the Paris music-halls, Piaf formed lasting friendships with such figures as Maurice Chevalier, Jean Cocteau and Marlene Dietrich; she wrote many of her own songs, aided the Resistance in the Second World War, and mentored younger singers like Yves Montand and Charles Aznavour. Yet her path to stardom was full of tragedies - the death of her daughter in infancy; the death of Marcel Cerdan, her greatest love, in a plane crash; her many illnesses, affairs and addictions, all of which nourished her passionate performances and strengthened her enduring bond with audiences. In this mesmerising, definitive new biography Carolyn Burke gives us Piaf in her own time and place, illuminating through sympathetic readings of sources hitherto unavailable both the charm and the pathos of the 'Little Sparrow' who enchanted generations and still enthralls us today.