Chaplin and American Culture
Chaplin and American Culture

Author: Charles J. Maland

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-01-12

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 0691223882

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Charles Maland focuses on the cultural sources of the on-and-off, love-hate affair between Chaplin and the American public that was perhaps the stormiest in American stardom.

Frank Capra
Frank Capra

Author: Joseph McBride

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2011-06-02

Total Pages: 825

ISBN-13: 1604738391

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Moviegoers often assume Frank Capra's life resembled his beloved films (such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life). A man of the people faces tremendous odds and, by doing the right thing, triumphs! But as Joseph McBride reveals in this meticulously researched, definitive biography, the reality was far more complex, a true American tragedy. Using newly declassified U.S. government documents about Capra's response to being considered a possible “subversive” during the post-World War II Red Scare, McBride adds a final chapter to his unforgettable portrait of the man who gave us It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and Meet John Doe.

Frank Capra
Frank Capra

Author: Robert Sklar

Publisher: Temple University Press

Published:

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 9781439904893

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Frank Capra's films have had a lasting impact on American culture. His powerful depiction of American values, myths, and ideals was central to such famous Hollywood films asIt Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It's a Wonderful Life.These pre-war films are remembered for their depiction of an individual's overcoming adversity, populist politics, and an unflappable optimist view of life. This collection of nine essays by leading international film historians analyzes Capra's filmmaking during his most prolific period, from 1928 to 1939, taking a closer look at the more complex aspects of his work. They trace his struggles for autonomy against Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn, his reputation as an auteur, and the ways in which working within studio modes of production may have enhanced the director's strengths. The contributors also place their critiques within the context of the changing fortunes of the Hollywood studio system, the impact of the Depression, and Capra's working relationships with other studio staff and directors. The contributors' access to nineteen newly restored Capra films made at Columbia during this period fills this collection with some of the most comprehensive critiques available on the director's early body of work. Author note:Robert Sklar, Professor of Cinema at New York University, is the co-editor (with Charles Musser) ofResisting Images: Essays on Cinema and History(Temple), and the author of numerous books on film, includingMovie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies, City Boys: Cagney, Bogart, and Garfield, andFilm: An International History of the Mediumwinner of the Kraszna-Krausz Book Award.Vito Zagarrioteaches film history at the University of Florence and film analysis at the University of Rome III, Italy.

John Ford Made Westerns
John Ford Made Westerns

Author: Gaylyn Studlar

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2001-04-22

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780253214140

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The Western is arguably the most popular and longlived form in cinematic history, and the acknowledged master of that genre was John Ford. His Westerns, including The Searchers, Stagecoach, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, have had an enormous influence on contemporary U.S. filmmakers, and on everything from Star Wars to Taxi Driver.In nine majors essays from some of the most prominent scholars of Hollywood film, John Ford Made Westerns: Filming The Legend in The Sound Era situates the sound era westerns of John Ford within contemporary critical contexts and regards them from fresh perspectives. These range from examining Ford's relation to other art forms (most notably literature, painting and music) to exploring the development of the director's public reputation as a director of Westerns. Articles also address the intricacies of Ford's shifting approach to storytelling and the subtle techniques whereby Ford's films guide spectator interpretation and emotional engagement.While giving attention to film style and structure, the volume also explores the ways in which these much loved films engage with notions of masculinity and gender roles, capitalism and community, as well as racial and sexual identity. Authors also examine how Ford's sound-era Westerns create a complex relationship to the genre's traditional project of "defining an American nation" and how they uphold up but also question popular culture depictions of history and nationhood, to offer a commentary that engages with both the past, the present and the future.In addition to new scholarship, the volume also offers a dossier section of out of the way magazine articles that illuminate the issues raised by essays, including the director's tribute to John Wayne as well as a moving posthumous appraisal of the director published by the Director's Guild of America.

American History/American Film
American History/American Film

Author: John E. O'Connor

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-10-06

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1474281907

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In this pioneering work, sixteen historians analyse individual films for deeper insight into US institutions, values and lifestyles. Linking all of the essays is the belief that film holds much of value for the historian seeking to understand and interpret American history and culture. This title will be equally valuable for students and scholars in history using film for analysis as well as film students and scholars exploring the way social and historical circumstances are reflected and represented in film.

The Star-Spangled Screen
The Star-Spangled Screen

Author: Bernard F. Dick

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2014-07-11

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 0813148952

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The American World War II film depicted a united America, a mythic America in which the average guy, the girl next door, the 4-F patriot, and the grieving mother were suddenly transformed into heroes and heroines, warriors and goddesses. The Star-Spangled Screen examines the historical accuracy—or lack thereof—of films about the Third Reich, the Resistance, and major military campaigns. Concerned primarily with the films of the war years, it also includes discussions of such postwar movies as Battleground (1949), Attack! (1956), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and Patton (1970). This revised edition includes a new afterword that covers more recent films, such as Sophie's Choice (1982), Biloxi Blues (1986), and Schindler's List (1993). The Star-Spangled Screen makes a major contribution to popular culture by recreating an era that, for all its tragedy, was one of the most creative in the history of American film.

Mystic Chords of Memory
Mystic Chords of Memory

Author: Michael Kammen

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2011-08-17

Total Pages: 879

ISBN-13: 0307761401

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Mystic Chords of Memory "Illustrated with hundreds of well-chosen anecdotes and minute observations . . . Kammen is a demon researcher who seems to have mined his nuggets from the entire corpus of American cultural history . . . insightful and sardonic." —Washington Post Book World In this ground-breaking, panoramic work of American cultural history, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Machine That Would Go of Itself examines a central paradox of our national identity How did "the land of the future" acquire a past? And to what extent has our collective memory of that past—as embodied in our traditions—have been distorted, or even manufactured? Ranging from John Adams to Ronald Reagan, from the origins of Independence Day celebrations to the controversies surrounding the Vietnam War Memorial, from the Daughters of the American Revolution to immigrant associations, and filled with incisive analyses of such phenonema as Americana and its collectors, "historic" villages and Disneyland, Mystic Chords of Memory is a brilliant, immensely readable, and enormously important book. "Fascinating . . . a subtle and teeming narrative . . . masterly." —Time "This is a big, ambitious book, and Kammen pulls it off admirably. . . . [He] brings a prodigious mind and much scholarly rigor to his task . . . an importnat book—and a revealing look at how Americans look at themselves." —Milwaukee Journal