Veit Erlmann
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195123678
- eISBN:
- 9780199868797
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195123678.003.0013
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter discusses the making of Bhekizizwe Joseph Shabalala — founder and lead singer of Ladysmith Black Mambazo — in two works: a biography authored by two black South African journalists and ...
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This chapter discusses the making of Bhekizizwe Joseph Shabalala — founder and lead singer of Ladysmith Black Mambazo — in two works: a biography authored by two black South African journalists and “Journey of Dreams”, a documentary shot in 1988 by David Lister. Both blend discourses of authenticity and international stardom and thus serve as important vehicles of self-fashioning in the interstices of the global music industry.Less
This chapter discusses the making of Bhekizizwe Joseph Shabalala — founder and lead singer of Ladysmith Black Mambazo — in two works: a biography authored by two black South African journalists and “Journey of Dreams”, a documentary shot in 1988 by David Lister. Both blend discourses of authenticity and international stardom and thus serve as important vehicles of self-fashioning in the interstices of the global music industry.
Irene González-López and Michael Smith (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474409698
- eISBN:
- 9781474444637
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474409698.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This is the first book in English dedicated to the actress and director Tanaka Kinuyo. Praised as amongst the greatest actors in the history of Japanese cinema, Tanaka’s career spanned the industrial ...
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This is the first book in English dedicated to the actress and director Tanaka Kinuyo. Praised as amongst the greatest actors in the history of Japanese cinema, Tanaka’s career spanned the industrial development of cinema - from silent to sound, monochrome to colour. Alongside featuring in films by Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse and Kurosawa, Tanaka was also the only Japanese woman filmmaker between 1953 and 1962, and her films tackled distinctly feminine topics such as prostitution and breast cancer. Because her career overlaps with a transformative period in Japan, especially for women, this close analysis of her fascinating life and work offers new perspectives into the Japanese history of women and classical era of national cinema.
The first half of the book focuses on Tanaka as actress and analyses the elements and meanings associated with her star image, and her powerful embodiment of diverse, at times contradictory, ideological discourses. The second half is dedicated to Tanaka as director and explores her public image as filmmaker and her depiction of gender and sexuality against the national history in order to reflect on her role and style as author.
With a special focus on the melodrama genre and on the sociopolitical and economic contexts of film production, the book offers a revision of theories of stardom, authorship, and women’s cinema. In examining Tanaka’s iconic reification of femininities in relation to politics, national identity, and memory, the chapters shed light on the cultural construction of female subjectivity and sexuality in Japanese popular culture.Less
This is the first book in English dedicated to the actress and director Tanaka Kinuyo. Praised as amongst the greatest actors in the history of Japanese cinema, Tanaka’s career spanned the industrial development of cinema - from silent to sound, monochrome to colour. Alongside featuring in films by Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse and Kurosawa, Tanaka was also the only Japanese woman filmmaker between 1953 and 1962, and her films tackled distinctly feminine topics such as prostitution and breast cancer. Because her career overlaps with a transformative period in Japan, especially for women, this close analysis of her fascinating life and work offers new perspectives into the Japanese history of women and classical era of national cinema.
The first half of the book focuses on Tanaka as actress and analyses the elements and meanings associated with her star image, and her powerful embodiment of diverse, at times contradictory, ideological discourses. The second half is dedicated to Tanaka as director and explores her public image as filmmaker and her depiction of gender and sexuality against the national history in order to reflect on her role and style as author.
With a special focus on the melodrama genre and on the sociopolitical and economic contexts of film production, the book offers a revision of theories of stardom, authorship, and women’s cinema. In examining Tanaka’s iconic reification of femininities in relation to politics, national identity, and memory, the chapters shed light on the cultural construction of female subjectivity and sexuality in Japanese popular culture.
Sabrina Qiong Yu and Guy Austin (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474404310
- eISBN:
- 9781474434850
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474404310.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This collection revisits star studies with themes and methods from the latest international research into stardom and fandom across the globe. It challenges the Hollywood-centrism in star studies by ...
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This collection revisits star studies with themes and methods from the latest international research into stardom and fandom across the globe. It challenges the Hollywood-centrism in star studies by presenting new angles and models, and raises important questions about image, performance, gender, sexuality, race, fandom, social media, globalisation, and translocal stardom. This volume seeks to expand the notion of stardom that is traditionally associated with glamour and desirability to include less glamourous, more troubling stardom (e.g. ageing stars, ‘crip’ stars), or previously unacknowledged stardom (e.g. porn stars, animal stars). It also aims to expand star studies to a wider range of critical disciplines by engaging with performance studies, genre studies, sound studies, disability studies, animal studies and so on. From Hollywood to Bollywood, from China to Spain, and from Poland to Mexico, this collection revisits the definitions of stars and star studies that have been previously based on the study of Hollywood stardom, and points the way forward to new ways of approaching the field.Less
This collection revisits star studies with themes and methods from the latest international research into stardom and fandom across the globe. It challenges the Hollywood-centrism in star studies by presenting new angles and models, and raises important questions about image, performance, gender, sexuality, race, fandom, social media, globalisation, and translocal stardom. This volume seeks to expand the notion of stardom that is traditionally associated with glamour and desirability to include less glamourous, more troubling stardom (e.g. ageing stars, ‘crip’ stars), or previously unacknowledged stardom (e.g. porn stars, animal stars). It also aims to expand star studies to a wider range of critical disciplines by engaging with performance studies, genre studies, sound studies, disability studies, animal studies and so on. From Hollywood to Bollywood, from China to Spain, and from Poland to Mexico, this collection revisits the definitions of stars and star studies that have been previously based on the study of Hollywood stardom, and points the way forward to new ways of approaching the field.
Elaine Jeffreys and Louise Edwards
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622090873
- eISBN:
- 9789882206670
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622090873.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This book discusses the specific forms of celebrity that exist in China today and explores how China's celebrity culture incorporates aspects of global, capitalist practices into local Chinese ...
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This book discusses the specific forms of celebrity that exist in China today and explores how China's celebrity culture incorporates aspects of global, capitalist practices into local Chinese systems. It covers a wide variety of fields, including: film, literature, popular music, political, and sports stardom; celebrity CEOs; and the relationship between the media and celebrity. It seeks to understand why the production and consumption of celebrity has become such a common feature of life in recent decades.Less
This book discusses the specific forms of celebrity that exist in China today and explores how China's celebrity culture incorporates aspects of global, capitalist practices into local Chinese systems. It covers a wide variety of fields, including: film, literature, popular music, political, and sports stardom; celebrity CEOs; and the relationship between the media and celebrity. It seeks to understand why the production and consumption of celebrity has become such a common feature of life in recent decades.
Hannah Durkin
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042621
- eISBN:
- 9780252051463
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042621.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
The conclusion summarizes the book’s key arguments. It reflects on the significance of Baker and Dunham’s memoirs and films in revealing the limitations of their roles as midcentury Black women ...
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The conclusion summarizes the book’s key arguments. It reflects on the significance of Baker and Dunham’s memoirs and films in revealing the limitations of their roles as midcentury Black women artists and also their authorship despite such restrictions and their important contributions to literature and cinema. Baker and Dunham’s memoirs show how they each used dance to engage self-reflexively with pseudo-ethnographic tropes and to contest dehumanizing attitudes to Black Atlantic cultures and identities. Such texts reveal the origins of their antiracist philosophies and call attention to their international contributions to the civil rights and Black Arts movements. Equally, their screen careers expand our understanding of African American film history by revealing key moments of early Black female stardom and authorship beyond the realm of Hollywood.Less
The conclusion summarizes the book’s key arguments. It reflects on the significance of Baker and Dunham’s memoirs and films in revealing the limitations of their roles as midcentury Black women artists and also their authorship despite such restrictions and their important contributions to literature and cinema. Baker and Dunham’s memoirs show how they each used dance to engage self-reflexively with pseudo-ethnographic tropes and to contest dehumanizing attitudes to Black Atlantic cultures and identities. Such texts reveal the origins of their antiracist philosophies and call attention to their international contributions to the civil rights and Black Arts movements. Equally, their screen careers expand our understanding of African American film history by revealing key moments of early Black female stardom and authorship beyond the realm of Hollywood.
Nilo Couret
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520296848
- eISBN:
- 9780520969162
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520296848.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book reconceptualizes both the geopolitical boundaries and the periodization of Latin American film histories in order to reveal a predominant comic mode in the cultural practices of Latin ...
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This book reconceptualizes both the geopolitical boundaries and the periodization of Latin American film histories in order to reveal a predominant comic mode in the cultural practices of Latin America in the twentieth century. Comedies have been either relegated to the margins of regional film histories in the shadow of the New Latin American Cinema or articulated to the broader socializing and nationalistic function of earlier commercial traditions. Rather than map Latin American cinema according to radical politics, film directors, or film movements—as do conventional film histories—this comparative project examines the formal and narrative operations of Argentine, Brazilian, and Mexican commercially successful comedies released between the 1920s and the 1950s in order to demonstrate how they functioned as peripheral responses to modernization and prefigured the more explicitly political New Latin American Cinema of the 1960s. Each chapter braids empirical research, close reading, film theory, and Latin American studies to argue that Latin American cinema from the studio period became classical in ways that were phenomenally distinct from but structurally akin to those of Hollywood. To that end, each chapter presents one way that classical Hollywood was constructed within film studies and demonstrates how the ways cinema became classical in Hollywood do not occur identically in Latin America. Using an approach that encompasses both textual analysis as well as a range of practices from the film experience, such as stardom, trade and popular publications, and broadcast media, this book proposes thinking classicism as a discourse that mediates and renders the world, looking at the construction of the aesthetic world as diegetic totality and the circulation of the texts and objects in global circuits of economic exchange.Less
This book reconceptualizes both the geopolitical boundaries and the periodization of Latin American film histories in order to reveal a predominant comic mode in the cultural practices of Latin America in the twentieth century. Comedies have been either relegated to the margins of regional film histories in the shadow of the New Latin American Cinema or articulated to the broader socializing and nationalistic function of earlier commercial traditions. Rather than map Latin American cinema according to radical politics, film directors, or film movements—as do conventional film histories—this comparative project examines the formal and narrative operations of Argentine, Brazilian, and Mexican commercially successful comedies released between the 1920s and the 1950s in order to demonstrate how they functioned as peripheral responses to modernization and prefigured the more explicitly political New Latin American Cinema of the 1960s. Each chapter braids empirical research, close reading, film theory, and Latin American studies to argue that Latin American cinema from the studio period became classical in ways that were phenomenally distinct from but structurally akin to those of Hollywood. To that end, each chapter presents one way that classical Hollywood was constructed within film studies and demonstrates how the ways cinema became classical in Hollywood do not occur identically in Latin America. Using an approach that encompasses both textual analysis as well as a range of practices from the film experience, such as stardom, trade and popular publications, and broadcast media, this book proposes thinking classicism as a discourse that mediates and renders the world, looking at the construction of the aesthetic world as diegetic totality and the circulation of the texts and objects in global circuits of economic exchange.
Murray Pomerance and Kyle Stevens (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This two-volume set presents detailed interpretations of singular performances by several of the most compelling actors in cinema history, asking in many different and complementary ways what makes ...
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This two-volume set presents detailed interpretations of singular performances by several of the most compelling actors in cinema history, asking in many different and complementary ways what makes performance meaningful, how it reflects a director's style, as well as how it contributes to the development of national cinemas and cultures. Whether noting the precise ways actors shape film narrative, achieve emotional effect, or move toward political subversion, the essays in these books innovate new approaches to studying screen performance as an art form and cultural force.
This second volume focuses on international cinema, and includes case studies of key performances from actors like Ingrid Bergman, Gael Garcia Bernal, Nikolai Cherkassov, Alec Guinness, Setsuko Hara, Isabelle Huppert, Peter Lorre, Madhubala, Anna Magnani, Toshirô Mifune, and Choi Min Sik, amongst many others.Less
This two-volume set presents detailed interpretations of singular performances by several of the most compelling actors in cinema history, asking in many different and complementary ways what makes performance meaningful, how it reflects a director's style, as well as how it contributes to the development of national cinemas and cultures. Whether noting the precise ways actors shape film narrative, achieve emotional effect, or move toward political subversion, the essays in these books innovate new approaches to studying screen performance as an art form and cultural force.
This second volume focuses on international cinema, and includes case studies of key performances from actors like Ingrid Bergman, Gael Garcia Bernal, Nikolai Cherkassov, Alec Guinness, Setsuko Hara, Isabelle Huppert, Peter Lorre, Madhubala, Anna Magnani, Toshirô Mifune, and Choi Min Sik, amongst many others.
Ben McCann
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719091148
- eISBN:
- 9781526124111
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719091148.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book is the first ever English-language study of Julien Duvivier (1896-1967), once considered one of the world’s great film filmmakers. It provides new contextual and analytical readings of his ...
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This book is the first ever English-language study of Julien Duvivier (1896-1967), once considered one of the world’s great film filmmakers. It provides new contextual and analytical readings of his films that identify his key themes and techniques, trace patterns of continuity and change, and explore critical assessments of his work over time. Throughout a five-decade career, Duvivier zigzagged between multiple genres – film noir, comedy, literary adaptation – and made over sixty films. His career intersects with important historical moments in French cinema, like the arrival of sound film, the development of the ‘poetic realism’, the exodus to America during the German Occupation, the working within the Hollywood studio system in the 1940s, and the return to France and to a much-changed film landscape in the 1950s.
Often dismissed as a marginal figure in French film history, this groundbreaking book illustrates Duvivier’s eclecticism, technical efficiency and visual fluency in films such as Panique (1946) and Voici le temps des assassins (1956) alongside more familiar works like La Belle Equipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937). It will particularly appeal to scholars and students of French cinema looking for examples of a director who could comfortably straddle the realms of the popular and the auteur.Less
This book is the first ever English-language study of Julien Duvivier (1896-1967), once considered one of the world’s great film filmmakers. It provides new contextual and analytical readings of his films that identify his key themes and techniques, trace patterns of continuity and change, and explore critical assessments of his work over time. Throughout a five-decade career, Duvivier zigzagged between multiple genres – film noir, comedy, literary adaptation – and made over sixty films. His career intersects with important historical moments in French cinema, like the arrival of sound film, the development of the ‘poetic realism’, the exodus to America during the German Occupation, the working within the Hollywood studio system in the 1940s, and the return to France and to a much-changed film landscape in the 1950s.
Often dismissed as a marginal figure in French film history, this groundbreaking book illustrates Duvivier’s eclecticism, technical efficiency and visual fluency in films such as Panique (1946) and Voici le temps des assassins (1956) alongside more familiar works like La Belle Equipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937). It will particularly appeal to scholars and students of French cinema looking for examples of a director who could comfortably straddle the realms of the popular and the auteur.
Felicity Chaplin
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526109538
- eISBN:
- 9781526128263
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526109538.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
While there have been significant contributions on la Parisienne in the fields of art history, fashion theory and culture, and cultural history, little is written on her appearance and function in ...
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While there have been significant contributions on la Parisienne in the fields of art history, fashion theory and culture, and cultural history, little is written on her appearance and function in cinema. This book is an attempt to address this gap in scholarship by examining the figure of la Parisienne in cinema.
The approach of this book is threefold: textual (the films), contextual (the history of the representations of the Parisienne type), and intertextual (the relationship between the films and other texts such as novels and paintings, extending to the star persona of the actress). However the overarching methodology of this book is iconographical, tracing the historical prefigurations of la Parisienne in the art, literature, and mass culture of nineteenth-century France.
The findings of this book are both general (la Parisienne as a cultural type) and specific (la Parisienne as a she appears in different films). La Parisienne can be defined as a figure of French modernity, understood both in its technological and cultural sense, and is recognisable in terms of six interconnected categories: art, cosmopolitanism, fashion, danger, prostitution, and stardom.
These categories reveal the way the Parisienne type is constantly evolving while at the same time possessing a set of recognisable motifs. By connecting the films discussed in this book to a cultural tradition to which they may not at first appear to belong, this book not only enriches our understanding of these films, it also offers new analytical and interpretative perspectives.Less
While there have been significant contributions on la Parisienne in the fields of art history, fashion theory and culture, and cultural history, little is written on her appearance and function in cinema. This book is an attempt to address this gap in scholarship by examining the figure of la Parisienne in cinema.
The approach of this book is threefold: textual (the films), contextual (the history of the representations of the Parisienne type), and intertextual (the relationship between the films and other texts such as novels and paintings, extending to the star persona of the actress). However the overarching methodology of this book is iconographical, tracing the historical prefigurations of la Parisienne in the art, literature, and mass culture of nineteenth-century France.
The findings of this book are both general (la Parisienne as a cultural type) and specific (la Parisienne as a she appears in different films). La Parisienne can be defined as a figure of French modernity, understood both in its technological and cultural sense, and is recognisable in terms of six interconnected categories: art, cosmopolitanism, fashion, danger, prostitution, and stardom.
These categories reveal the way the Parisienne type is constantly evolving while at the same time possessing a set of recognisable motifs. By connecting the films discussed in this book to a cultural tradition to which they may not at first appear to belong, this book not only enriches our understanding of these films, it also offers new analytical and interpretative perspectives.
Melanie Williams
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474405638
- eISBN:
- 9781474434843
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474405638.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Film stars are often seen as a predominantly Hollywood creation but this book explores how British cinema developed its own culture of stardom, and how its female stars have been prized by audiences ...
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Film stars are often seen as a predominantly Hollywood creation but this book explores how British cinema developed its own culture of stardom, and how its female stars have been prized by audiences worldwide. Female Stars of British Cinema uses case studies of seven female stars whose careers span the 1940s to the present day – Jean Kent, Diana Dors, Rita Tushingham, Glenda Jackson, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Lloyd, and Judi Dench – to explore how British star femininities have developed over time, and how the image of the British female star has responded to broader social and cultural changes. These ‘women in question’ offer a way into the complexities of British cinema’s culture of stardom which has sometimes espoused glamour and sometimes rejected it, and is entangled with issues of regional, national and ethnic identity, as well as class, sexuality and age. Exploring and investigating the variety of British star femininities over the last seventy-five years, this book also interrogates the omissions and absences from that same cinematic firmament.Less
Film stars are often seen as a predominantly Hollywood creation but this book explores how British cinema developed its own culture of stardom, and how its female stars have been prized by audiences worldwide. Female Stars of British Cinema uses case studies of seven female stars whose careers span the 1940s to the present day – Jean Kent, Diana Dors, Rita Tushingham, Glenda Jackson, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Lloyd, and Judi Dench – to explore how British star femininities have developed over time, and how the image of the British female star has responded to broader social and cultural changes. These ‘women in question’ offer a way into the complexities of British cinema’s culture of stardom which has sometimes espoused glamour and sometimes rejected it, and is entangled with issues of regional, national and ethnic identity, as well as class, sexuality and age. Exploring and investigating the variety of British star femininities over the last seventy-five years, this book also interrogates the omissions and absences from that same cinematic firmament.
Murray Pomerance and Steven Rybin (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474411394
- eISBN:
- 9781474438445
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474411394.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
John Barrymore’s influence on screen and stage in the early twentieth century is incalculable. His performances in the theater defined Shakespeare for a generation, and his transition to cinema ...
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John Barrymore’s influence on screen and stage in the early twentieth century is incalculable. His performances in the theater defined Shakespeare for a generation, and his transition to cinema brought his theatrical performativity to both silent and sound screens. However, in today’s cinema culture, which favors “realistically” grounded performance and harbors suspicions of theatricality as “over-acting” or as somehow irreducibly different from acting in the cinema, both the historical and ongoing importance of John Barrymore’s uniquely cinematic theatricality is often forgotten or disregarded. This book, a collection of fifteen original essays on the film performances and stardom of John Barrymore, redresses this lack of scholarship on Barrymore by offering a range of varied perspectives on the actor’s work. The contributors to the book explore Barrymore from a number of angles, including performance analysis, theatricality, stardom, gender, masculinity, sexuality, psychoanalysis, voice, queer studies, and more. Specific chapters also offer overviews of Barrymore’s career on stage and on screen as well as considerations of his work with other actors, including his famous siblings. Taken together, Hamlet Lives in Hollywood represents a major attempt by contemporary scholars to come to terms with the ongoing vitality of John Barrymore’s work in our present day.Less
John Barrymore’s influence on screen and stage in the early twentieth century is incalculable. His performances in the theater defined Shakespeare for a generation, and his transition to cinema brought his theatrical performativity to both silent and sound screens. However, in today’s cinema culture, which favors “realistically” grounded performance and harbors suspicions of theatricality as “over-acting” or as somehow irreducibly different from acting in the cinema, both the historical and ongoing importance of John Barrymore’s uniquely cinematic theatricality is often forgotten or disregarded. This book, a collection of fifteen original essays on the film performances and stardom of John Barrymore, redresses this lack of scholarship on Barrymore by offering a range of varied perspectives on the actor’s work. The contributors to the book explore Barrymore from a number of angles, including performance analysis, theatricality, stardom, gender, masculinity, sexuality, psychoanalysis, voice, queer studies, and more. Specific chapters also offer overviews of Barrymore’s career on stage and on screen as well as considerations of his work with other actors, including his famous siblings. Taken together, Hamlet Lives in Hollywood represents a major attempt by contemporary scholars to come to terms with the ongoing vitality of John Barrymore’s work in our present day.
Landon Palmer
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- August 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190888404
- eISBN:
- 9780190888442
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190888404.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
When midcentury Hollywood found itself struggling to compete within an expanding entertainment media landscape, certain producers and studios saw an opportunity in making films that showcased ...
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When midcentury Hollywood found itself struggling to compete within an expanding entertainment media landscape, certain producers and studios saw an opportunity in making films that showcased performances by rock ’n’ roll stars. Such stars eventually found cinema to be a useful space to extend their creative practices, and the motion picture and recording industries increasingly saw cinematic rock stardom as a profitable means to connect multiple media properties. This book examines how casting rock stars for film provided a tool for bridging new relationships across media industries and practices. Rock Star/Movie Star offers a new perspective on the role of stardom within the convergence of media industries. While hardly the first popular music culture to see its stars making the transition to screen, the timing of rock’s emergence and its staying power within popular culture proved fortuitous for a motion picture business searching for its place in the face of continuous technological and cultural change. At the same time, a post-star-system film industry provided a welcoming context for rock stars who have valued authenticity, creative autonomy, and personal expression. Examining stars from Elvis Presley to Madonna, this book uses illuminating archival resources to demonstrate how rock stars have often proven themselves to be prominent film workers exploring this terrain of platforms old and new—ideal media laborers whose power lies in the fact that they are rarely recognized as such.Less
When midcentury Hollywood found itself struggling to compete within an expanding entertainment media landscape, certain producers and studios saw an opportunity in making films that showcased performances by rock ’n’ roll stars. Such stars eventually found cinema to be a useful space to extend their creative practices, and the motion picture and recording industries increasingly saw cinematic rock stardom as a profitable means to connect multiple media properties. This book examines how casting rock stars for film provided a tool for bridging new relationships across media industries and practices. Rock Star/Movie Star offers a new perspective on the role of stardom within the convergence of media industries. While hardly the first popular music culture to see its stars making the transition to screen, the timing of rock’s emergence and its staying power within popular culture proved fortuitous for a motion picture business searching for its place in the face of continuous technological and cultural change. At the same time, a post-star-system film industry provided a welcoming context for rock stars who have valued authenticity, creative autonomy, and personal expression. Examining stars from Elvis Presley to Madonna, this book uses illuminating archival resources to demonstrate how rock stars have often proven themselves to be prominent film workers exploring this terrain of platforms old and new—ideal media laborers whose power lies in the fact that they are rarely recognized as such.
Hannah Durkin
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042621
- eISBN:
- 9780252051463
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042621.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
This chapter examines Zouzou (1933) and Princesse Tam-Tam (1934) as cinematically ambivalent in their portrayal of Baker as both a “primitive” performer and a glamorous chanteuse. The productions ...
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This chapter examines Zouzou (1933) and Princesse Tam-Tam (1934) as cinematically ambivalent in their portrayal of Baker as both a “primitive” performer and a glamorous chanteuse. The productions play up pseudo-ethnographic fantasies of Black subjects while their narratives subjugate Baker’s characters. And yet their ambitious musical numbers associate her with Eurocentric notions of beauty in an attempt to establish her as a film star. In so doing, they provide Baker with a level of cinematic authorship, visibility, and glamour inaccessible to Black women in 1930s Hollywood. Consequently, Baker should be recognized as the chief author of her musical numbers as she uses these scenes to create a multifaceted and self-referential screen image, negating simplistic readings of a performative Black womanhood.Less
This chapter examines Zouzou (1933) and Princesse Tam-Tam (1934) as cinematically ambivalent in their portrayal of Baker as both a “primitive” performer and a glamorous chanteuse. The productions play up pseudo-ethnographic fantasies of Black subjects while their narratives subjugate Baker’s characters. And yet their ambitious musical numbers associate her with Eurocentric notions of beauty in an attempt to establish her as a film star. In so doing, they provide Baker with a level of cinematic authorship, visibility, and glamour inaccessible to Black women in 1930s Hollywood. Consequently, Baker should be recognized as the chief author of her musical numbers as she uses these scenes to create a multifaceted and self-referential screen image, negating simplistic readings of a performative Black womanhood.
Janet Bergstrom
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Peter Lorre in M
A discussion of Peter Lorre in M
Sergio Rigoletto
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Anna Magnani in The Golden Coach
A discussion of Anna Magnani in The Golden Coach
R. Barton Palmer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Alec Guinness in Last Holiday
A discussion of Alec Guinness in Last Holiday
Victoria Duckett
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0009
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Ingrid Bergman in Stromboli
A discussion of Ingrid Bergman in Stromboli
Adrian Danks
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0013
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Jeanne Moreau in The Bride Wore Black
A discussion of Jeanne Moreau in The Bride Wore Black
Kyle Stevens
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0014
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Michel Serrault in La cage aux folles
A discussion of Michel Serrault in La cage aux folles
Corey K. Creekmur
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474417037
- eISBN:
- 9781474444750
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417037.003.0015
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A discussion of Madhubala in Mughal-e-Azam
A discussion of Madhubala in Mughal-e-Azam