Usha Iyer
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- October 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190938734
- eISBN:
- 9780190938772
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190938734.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Chapter 4 focuses on two Bharatanatyam-trained stars in the 1950s and 1960s, Vyjayanthimala and Waheeda Rehman, analyzing changes in film dance alongside the canonization of specific classical and ...
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Chapter 4 focuses on two Bharatanatyam-trained stars in the 1950s and 1960s, Vyjayanthimala and Waheeda Rehman, analyzing changes in film dance alongside the canonization of specific classical and folk dance forms by the Sangeet Natak Akademi. By studying how dance training influences acting repertoires, this chapter calls attention to movement, gesture, and bodily comportment to enhance our understanding of virtuosity and technique, proposing a movement-based analysis of film acting grounded in kinesthetic performance and spectatorship. Rehman and Vyjayanthimala’s most ambitious production numbers speak to their own performative desires as trained dancers. Films featuring these A-list actresses as dancing protagonists evince a generic tendency, described here as the “melodrama of dance reform,” which combines the dance spectacular with the “social problem” film, producing in the process cinematic figurations riven with anxieties and aspirations around female sexuality, bodily movement, and economic independence.Less
Chapter 4 focuses on two Bharatanatyam-trained stars in the 1950s and 1960s, Vyjayanthimala and Waheeda Rehman, analyzing changes in film dance alongside the canonization of specific classical and folk dance forms by the Sangeet Natak Akademi. By studying how dance training influences acting repertoires, this chapter calls attention to movement, gesture, and bodily comportment to enhance our understanding of virtuosity and technique, proposing a movement-based analysis of film acting grounded in kinesthetic performance and spectatorship. Rehman and Vyjayanthimala’s most ambitious production numbers speak to their own performative desires as trained dancers. Films featuring these A-list actresses as dancing protagonists evince a generic tendency, described here as the “melodrama of dance reform,” which combines the dance spectacular with the “social problem” film, producing in the process cinematic figurations riven with anxieties and aspirations around female sexuality, bodily movement, and economic independence.
Ana Hedberg Olenina
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190051259
- eISBN:
- 9780190051297
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190051259.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Chapter 3 examines the approaches to film actor training developed by the Soviet avant-garde filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the early 1920s. Inspired by the radical innovations of contemporary theater, ...
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Chapter 3 examines the approaches to film actor training developed by the Soviet avant-garde filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the early 1920s. Inspired by the radical innovations of contemporary theater, Kuleshov’s perspective on film acting relied on Ivan Pavlov’s and Vladimir Bekhterev’s reflexology, as well as psychotechnics and Taylorist labor efficiency training. Based on archival materials, this chapter establishes Kuleshov’s connection to the Central Institute of Labor (Tsentral’nyi Institut Truda) in Moscow, which promoted a utopian program of ingraining effective working skills in the nervous systems of factory workers by optimizing their trajectories of movement. Kuleshov embraced the concepts and techniques popularized by this Institute. He theorized his actors’ ideal performance in terms of energy expenditure and maximal use of the audiences’ attention span. My analysis of Kuleshov’s program for actors’ bodily discipline scrutinizes the training apparatuses he relied on in the hopes of achieving geometrically precise, rhythmical gestures, which he believed could form a legible “ornament” in rapid montage.Less
Chapter 3 examines the approaches to film actor training developed by the Soviet avant-garde filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the early 1920s. Inspired by the radical innovations of contemporary theater, Kuleshov’s perspective on film acting relied on Ivan Pavlov’s and Vladimir Bekhterev’s reflexology, as well as psychotechnics and Taylorist labor efficiency training. Based on archival materials, this chapter establishes Kuleshov’s connection to the Central Institute of Labor (Tsentral’nyi Institut Truda) in Moscow, which promoted a utopian program of ingraining effective working skills in the nervous systems of factory workers by optimizing their trajectories of movement. Kuleshov embraced the concepts and techniques popularized by this Institute. He theorized his actors’ ideal performance in terms of energy expenditure and maximal use of the audiences’ attention span. My analysis of Kuleshov’s program for actors’ bodily discipline scrutinizes the training apparatuses he relied on in the hopes of achieving geometrically precise, rhythmical gestures, which he believed could form a legible “ornament” in rapid montage.
Uma Maheswari Bhrugubanda
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- February 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780199487356
- eISBN:
- 9780199093281
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199487356.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Chapter 5 adopts the framework suggested by Partha Chatterjee for the study of popular culture wherein the critical focus is on disciplinary practices rather than underlying beliefs or concepts. ...
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Chapter 5 adopts the framework suggested by Partha Chatterjee for the study of popular culture wherein the critical focus is on disciplinary practices rather than underlying beliefs or concepts. Therefore, it continues the previous chapter’s reflections on affect and embodiment through an anthropology of film-making and film-screening practices. Drawing on biographies and memoirs of film-makers and actors as well as personal interviews it tracks the debates within the disciplinary field of cinema and brings into view the diversity of perceptions and changing production and performance practices when it comes to representing divinity and religiosity. It also pays special attention to the unique modes of publicity and tailor-made marketing strategies adopted for these religious genres.Less
Chapter 5 adopts the framework suggested by Partha Chatterjee for the study of popular culture wherein the critical focus is on disciplinary practices rather than underlying beliefs or concepts. Therefore, it continues the previous chapter’s reflections on affect and embodiment through an anthropology of film-making and film-screening practices. Drawing on biographies and memoirs of film-makers and actors as well as personal interviews it tracks the debates within the disciplinary field of cinema and brings into view the diversity of perceptions and changing production and performance practices when it comes to representing divinity and religiosity. It also pays special attention to the unique modes of publicity and tailor-made marketing strategies adopted for these religious genres.
James Naremore
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- April 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780197566374
- eISBN:
- 9780197566411
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197566374.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Some Versions of Cary Grant analyses Cary Grant’s performances in a gallery of his best films, arguing that he not only had exceptional skills but also greater range than is usually recognized. ...
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Some Versions of Cary Grant analyses Cary Grant’s performances in a gallery of his best films, arguing that he not only had exceptional skills but also greater range than is usually recognized. Organized in terms of five versions of Grant, it emphasizes his work as a farceur in The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), and His Girl Friday (1940); as a dark figure in Suspicion (1941) and Notorious (1946); as a romantic leading man in An Affair to Remember (1957) and Indiscreet (1958); as a domestic male in Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) and Room for One More (1952); and as a Cockney character in Sylvia Scarlett (1935) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944). A close study of an actor who worked with important but very different directors, among them Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, and Leo McCarey, it provides a model for the appreciation of screen acting in general.Less
Some Versions of Cary Grant analyses Cary Grant’s performances in a gallery of his best films, arguing that he not only had exceptional skills but also greater range than is usually recognized. Organized in terms of five versions of Grant, it emphasizes his work as a farceur in The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), and His Girl Friday (1940); as a dark figure in Suspicion (1941) and Notorious (1946); as a romantic leading man in An Affair to Remember (1957) and Indiscreet (1958); as a domestic male in Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) and Room for One More (1952); and as a Cockney character in Sylvia Scarlett (1935) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944). A close study of an actor who worked with important but very different directors, among them Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, and Leo McCarey, it provides a model for the appreciation of screen acting in general.