Browse

In the early days of cinema, a forgotten master played a major part in the development of feature film and literary adaptation. In France, Albert Capellani directed for Pathé the first versions of Les Misérables (1912) and Germinal (1913), which were greeted as masterpieces worldwide. Capellani moved to the United States in 1915, where he directed some of the greatest stars of the screen, including Clara Kimball Young, Alla Nazimova, and Marion Davies. He even created his own production company in Fort Lee, New Jersey, then the hub of the film industry. Considered one of the greatest filmmakers of the age, Capellani sank into oblivion after his premature death in 1931. Yet cinema made a giant leap forward thanks to the extraordinary visual sense of this artist, who considered filmmaking on a par with drama, literature, and music. In 2010, the Bologna Film Festival organized a retrospective that restored him to the place he deserves in film history. His amazing career is recounted for the first time after in-depth research in archives. This is the first-ever detailed biography of this pioneer, affectionately nicknamed “Cap” by the Americans. This book follows the adventures of a filmmaker who, together with many fellow French directors, technicians, and cameramen, brought to the American film industry the “French touch.”

Animators work within a strictly defined, limited space that requires difficult artistic decisions. The blank frame presents a dilemma for all animators, and the decision as to what to include and leave out raises important questions about artistry, authorship, and cultural influence. This book explores how animation has confronted the blank template, and how responses to that confrontation have changed. Focusing on American animation, the book tracks the development of animation in line with changing cultural attitudes toward space and examines innovations that elevated the medium from a novelty to a fully realized art form. From Winsor McCay and the Fleischer brothers to the Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros., and Pixar Studios, this book explores the contributions of those who invented animation, those who refined it, and those who, in the current digital age, are using it to redefine the very possibilities of cinema.

Ann Dvorak may not have been the best-known actress of Hollywood’s golden age, but she certainly made her mark. She blazed onto screens in 1932 as Paul Muni’s doomed sister in Scarface, and seemed poised for stardom as a darling of the daring pre-Code era. However, poor business decisions, studio battles with Warner Bros., extended absences, and overbearing husbands torpedoed Ann’s chances of rising to the heights within the structure of the Hollywood studio system like contemporaries Bette Davis and Jean Harlow. Dvorak sued Warner Bros. to get out of her long-term contract, inspiring Davis and James Cagney to follow in her footsteps with their similar, and more well-known cases. Just as her freelance career began gaining steam, she instead choose to literally fly into a war zone, becoming a correspondent and London ambulance driver during World War II. After the war, Dvorak’s career limped along into the early 1950s, as she gave bright performances in generally dim films, then abruptly opted for retirement, and obscurity, in Hawaii. Now, for the first time, the fascinating life and career of Ann Dvorak is explored by Christina Rice, who presents an in-depth look at this complicated woman who briefly took Hollywood by storm but seemed determined to throw away success with both hands and instead became Hollywood’s forgotten rebel.

This book is a biography of one of the twentieth century's most influential filmmakers. Thematic chapters convey the story of Penn's life and career, and they offer pertinent events in the history of American film, theatre, and television. In the process of tracing the full spectrum of his career, the book reveals the enormous scope of Penn's talent and his profound impact on the entertainment industry in an interesting account of the well-known director's life. Born in 1922 to a family of Philadelphia immigrants, the young Penn was bright but aimless—especially compared to his talented older brother Irving, who would later become a world-renowned photographer. Penn drifted into directing, but he soon mastered the craft in three mediums: television, Broadway, and motion pictures. By the time he made Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Penn was already a Tony-winning Broadway director and one of the prodigies of the golden age of television. His innovative handling of the story of two Depression-era outlaws not only challenged Hollywood's strict censorship code, it shook the foundation of studio system itself and ushered in the film revolution. His next films—Alice's Restaurant (1969), Little Big Man (1970), and Night Moves (1975)—became instant classics, summoning emotions from shock to sensuality and from confusion to horror, all of which reflected the complexity of the man behind the camera.

Hal Ashby (1929–1988) was always an outsider, and as a director he brought an outsider's perspective to Hollywood cinema. After moving to California from a Mormon household in Utah, he created eccentric films that reflected the uncertain social climate of the 1970s. Whether it is his enduring cult classic Harold and Maude (1971) or the iconic Being There (1979), Ashby's artistry is unmistakable. His skill for blending intense drama with off-kilter comedy attracted A-list actors and elicited powerful performances from Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail (1973), Warren Beatty and Julie Christie in Shampoo (1975), and Jon Voight and Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1979). Yet the man behind these films is still something of a mystery. This book tells the story of a man whose thoughtful and challenging body of work continues to influence modern filmmakers and whose life was as dramatic and unconventional as his films. Although his name may not be recognized by many of today's filmgoers, Hal Ashby is certainly familiar to filmmakers. Despite his untimely death in 1988, his legacy of innovation and individuality continues to influence a generation of independent directors, including Wes Anderson, Sean Penn, and the Coen brothers, who place substance and style above the pursuit of box-office success.

Busby Berkeley was the premier dance director of motion pictures. His originality and sharply defined style brought him professional acclaim and financial reward. He saved a studio from bankruptcy and a doomed genre from senescence. He wasn't a choreographer. According to “Buzz”, choreographers were defined with artists such as Agnes de Mille. He defined “dance directing”. Busby Berkeley was a specialist in the best and limiting sense of the word. For musical pictures, he had no stylistic equal, yet he films he directed outside his purview were often middling and anonymous, lacking the imprimatur that defined his finest work. The existing literature analysing the life and works of this man is scarce and limited. The details concerning his volatile existence are often contradictory and inaccurate. This book uses colleague reminiscences, newspaper stories, legal documents, court records, studio memoranda, and never-before-published accounts from Berkeley's memoirs to create a vivid picture of this man.

Regarded by many filmmakers and critics as one of the greatest directors in cinema history, Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889-1968) achieved worldwide acclaim after the debut of his masterpiece, The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). Named the most influential film of all time at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, the classic film and its legendary director still exert strong influence even today. In 1955, Jan Wahl, an American student, had the extraordinary opportunity at the age of twenty to spend a unique and unforgettable summer with Dreyer as the director filmed Ordet or The Word (1955). Carl Theodor Dreyer and Ordet: My Summer with the Danish Filmmaker is a captivating account of Wahl's time with the director, based on Wahl's daily journal accounts and transcriptions of his conversations with Dreyer. Offering a glimpse into the filmmaker's world, Wahl fashions a portrait of Dreyer as a man, mentor, friend, and director. Wahl's unique and charming account is supplemented by exquisite photos of the filming and by selections from Dreyer's papers, including his notes on film style, his introduction for the actors before the filming of Ordet, and a visionary lecture he delivered at Edinburgh. Carl Theodor Dreyer and Ordet details one student's remarkable experiences with a legendary director and the unlikely bond formed over a summer.

During his lifetime, Charles “Chuck” Walters enjoyed a reputation as one of the foremost director-choreographers of Hollywood motion pictures. From his earliest directorial triumphs, Good News, Easter Parade, and The Barkleys of Broadway, to his victorious Lili, High Society, and The Unsinkable Molly Brown, musicals directed by Walters seamlessly fuse movement, storytelling, and song. He was one of Broadway’s most prominent dancers in the 1930s, creating featured roles in Rodgers and Hart’s I Married an Angel and Cole Porter’s Jubilee and Du Barry Was a Lady. He supplied choreography for entertainment on Broadway (Let’s Face It, St. Louis Woman) and at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in Hollywood (Meet Me in St. Louis, Girl Crazy). Especially renowned for the manner in which he showcased his stars, Walters skilfully guided Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, Doris Day, Cary Grant, Shirley MacLaine, Lucille Ball, Esther Williams, Grace Kelly, and Joan Crawford. He enjoyed a unique rapport with Judy Garland, creating some of her most indelible stage and screen performances. Personally, Walters was one of the few “uncloseted” gay film directors to excel in studio-era Hollywood, living openly with his partner, a top industry talent agent. This detailed study is long overdue. Charles Walters: The Director Who Made Hollywood Dance corrects both the historical oversight and reassesses the career of this Academy Award nominated film director, whose boyhood dream of dance led to a firmly — and now finally — acknowledged position as a major contributor to American popular culture.

This book explores the global-local interplay through the case study of the People’s Republic of China’s encounter with global Hollywood from the mid-1990s to 2013. It analyzes the changing role of the Chinese state and its evolving cultural policy; investigates the intertwined relationships among the Chinese state, global capital, and local dynamics; and examines the impact of this encounter on the Chinese film sector’s radical transformation from a Soviet-style planned economy and state ownership model to a market-oriented cultural industry. The book asks how this global-local interplay has defined and will continue to shape China’s arduous path toward cultural modernity in a postsocialist era and how this interplay has shaped the international cultural landscape. The book argues that the Chinese state’s ability to adapt and negotiate can reverse the power relationship in global communications. It concludes that the Chinese state has consolidated its authoritarian power by incorporating both market forces and global capital into the state mechanism and by advancing the cultural industries. The state also exercises a strict monopoly and limits free-market competition in the film industry. Through the conscious construction of a national identity and a “spiritual home” by means of the cultural industries, the state aims to build a “Beijing consensus” that features a combined legacy of socialism, nationalism, collectivism, and Confucianism to challenge the neoliberal “Washington consensus.” A postsocialist “unbalanced modernity” has emerged that works to further the party-state’s use of soft power and nourishes new development models and possibilities for China.