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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
James Donald
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199354016
- eISBN:
- 9780199354047
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199354016.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This book shows how interwar European audiences, artists, and intellectuals particularly associated with modernism, used Black American culture-for which “jazz” was often a shorthand-to negotiate the ...
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This book shows how interwar European audiences, artists, and intellectuals particularly associated with modernism, used Black American culture-for which “jazz” was often a shorthand-to negotiate the disorientating experience of modernity and modernization. One manifestation of this process was the fashionable Negrophilia of the 1920s, the decade in which the two most successful Black American stars of their era first made their names: the dancer Josephine Baker and the singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson. The book is threaded around their careers, their travels, and their relationships. It looks at their performances across a number of art forms and contexts-film, dance, song, theater, architecture, politics-and it introduces a rich and diverse cast of characters. One argument is that the fantasy of a supposedly more elemental or authentic “reality” attributed to blackness functioned as a way of compensating for the increased “virtualization” of experience brought about many aspects of modernity, not least the disruptions to familiar forms of time and space associated with the telephone, the gramophone, radio, and cinema. Another theme that emerges is that of “home”. The idea of home (like that of “race” ) often embodied a fantasy of subjective authenticity. For the nomadic Baker and Robeson, “home” promised stillness and belonging. The book also examines the antiracist activism of both stars.Less
This book shows how interwar European audiences, artists, and intellectuals particularly associated with modernism, used Black American culture-for which “jazz” was often a shorthand-to negotiate the disorientating experience of modernity and modernization. One manifestation of this process was the fashionable Negrophilia of the 1920s, the decade in which the two most successful Black American stars of their era first made their names: the dancer Josephine Baker and the singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson. The book is threaded around their careers, their travels, and their relationships. It looks at their performances across a number of art forms and contexts-film, dance, song, theater, architecture, politics-and it introduces a rich and diverse cast of characters. One argument is that the fantasy of a supposedly more elemental or authentic “reality” attributed to blackness functioned as a way of compensating for the increased “virtualization” of experience brought about many aspects of modernity, not least the disruptions to familiar forms of time and space associated with the telephone, the gramophone, radio, and cinema. Another theme that emerges is that of “home”. The idea of home (like that of “race” ) often embodied a fantasy of subjective authenticity. For the nomadic Baker and Robeson, “home” promised stillness and belonging. The book also examines the antiracist activism of both stars.
Ethan Mordden
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195140583
- eISBN:
- 9780199848867
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195140583.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
The Broadway musical was beginning the fourth decade of its golden age in the 1950s. The musical then was central to American culture. Its songs not only topped the Hit Parade but, unlike most pop ...
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The Broadway musical was beginning the fourth decade of its golden age in the 1950s. The musical then was central to American culture. Its songs not only topped the Hit Parade but, unlike most pop music, often passed into classic status. Its stars were American icons; better, its ability to create stardom, at times “overnight,” was awesome. Some fifty-one productions were fielded during the 1949–50 season. Fifteen of these fifty-one shows were musicals, and perhaps a good place to start would be with Big Broadway, in a star vehicle produced by Leland Hayward for Ethel Merman with an Irving Berlin score, a Howard Lindsay-Russel Crouse book, direction by George Abbott, and choreography by Jerome Robbins: Call Me Madam (1950). Other musicals during the period are discussed.Less
The Broadway musical was beginning the fourth decade of its golden age in the 1950s. The musical then was central to American culture. Its songs not only topped the Hit Parade but, unlike most pop music, often passed into classic status. Its stars were American icons; better, its ability to create stardom, at times “overnight,” was awesome. Some fifty-one productions were fielded during the 1949–50 season. Fifteen of these fifty-one shows were musicals, and perhaps a good place to start would be with Big Broadway, in a star vehicle produced by Leland Hayward for Ethel Merman with an Irving Berlin score, a Howard Lindsay-Russel Crouse book, direction by George Abbott, and choreography by Jerome Robbins: Call Me Madam (1950). Other musicals during the period are discussed.
Steven Cohan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- October 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190865788
- eISBN:
- 9780190865818
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190865788.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The backstudio picture, or movie about filmmaking, is a genre as old and as recent as commercial filmmaking itself. This genre’s longevity is due to its function in branding filmmaking with the ...
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The backstudio picture, or movie about filmmaking, is a genre as old and as recent as commercial filmmaking itself. This genre’s longevity is due to its function in branding filmmaking with the mystique of Hollywood. As the backstudio picture depicts it, Hollywood is simultaneously (1) an actual locale in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, (2) a business dedicated to the standardized production of motion pictures, and (3) an enduring cultural fantasy about fame, leisure, consuming, sexuality, artistry, and modernity. This overlapping of the literal (the locale) onto the material (the business) and the symbolic (the fantasy) has registered the impact of the film industry’s transformations as an institution even when the genre mystifies these changes in story terms. It is also the means by which the genre authenticates while glamorizing the industry’s representation of labor. Although Hollywood by Hollywood roughly follows the four major cycles of the genre’s development from the 1920s through the present day, it also loops back and forth in this chronology. Individual chapters discuss the genre’s self-reflexivity, its representations of Hollywood as a geographically specific yet imaginary place, narratives about movie-struck girls, narratives about has-been female stars, the masculinization of Hollywood through the focus on white male filmmakers, the genre’s recounting of the industry’s history in stories set in 1929, 1951, and 1962, and, finally, how Hollywood’s filmmaking practices have been moved offscreen, whether to break the fourth wall of the virtual world of film or to supply a cover for covert governmental actions.Less
The backstudio picture, or movie about filmmaking, is a genre as old and as recent as commercial filmmaking itself. This genre’s longevity is due to its function in branding filmmaking with the mystique of Hollywood. As the backstudio picture depicts it, Hollywood is simultaneously (1) an actual locale in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, (2) a business dedicated to the standardized production of motion pictures, and (3) an enduring cultural fantasy about fame, leisure, consuming, sexuality, artistry, and modernity. This overlapping of the literal (the locale) onto the material (the business) and the symbolic (the fantasy) has registered the impact of the film industry’s transformations as an institution even when the genre mystifies these changes in story terms. It is also the means by which the genre authenticates while glamorizing the industry’s representation of labor. Although Hollywood by Hollywood roughly follows the four major cycles of the genre’s development from the 1920s through the present day, it also loops back and forth in this chronology. Individual chapters discuss the genre’s self-reflexivity, its representations of Hollywood as a geographically specific yet imaginary place, narratives about movie-struck girls, narratives about has-been female stars, the masculinization of Hollywood through the focus on white male filmmakers, the genre’s recounting of the industry’s history in stories set in 1929, 1951, and 1962, and, finally, how Hollywood’s filmmaking practices have been moved offscreen, whether to break the fourth wall of the virtual world of film or to supply a cover for covert governmental actions.
Yiu-Wai Chu
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888390571
- eISBN:
- 9789888390298
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888390571.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
The rise of Cantopop can be attributed to the huge growth in local audiences in Hong Kong in the 1970s, when local Cantonese cultural industries became profitable business. The radical transformation ...
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The rise of Cantopop can be attributed to the huge growth in local audiences in Hong Kong in the 1970s, when local Cantonese cultural industries became profitable business. The radical transformation of the socio-political background and the swift development of local mass media in the 1970s provided a historical juncture in which a local Hong Kong consciousness came into being at long last. While Cantonese television and cinema became central to the colony’s cultural industries, Cantopop industry also provided a new source of stars. Thanks to its thriving vitality, the changing mediascape, and the developing economy, Cantopop had grown into a highly profitable business with a quickly expanding market by the end of the 1970s.Less
The rise of Cantopop can be attributed to the huge growth in local audiences in Hong Kong in the 1970s, when local Cantonese cultural industries became profitable business. The radical transformation of the socio-political background and the swift development of local mass media in the 1970s provided a historical juncture in which a local Hong Kong consciousness came into being at long last. While Cantonese television and cinema became central to the colony’s cultural industries, Cantopop industry also provided a new source of stars. Thanks to its thriving vitality, the changing mediascape, and the developing economy, Cantopop had grown into a highly profitable business with a quickly expanding market by the end of the 1970s.
Stephen Bottomore
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199797615
- eISBN:
- 9780199979738
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199797615.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, Western
In 1911, the former actor Eric Williams started a new career reciting to his own specially made films. Over the next few years he produced and acted in some dozen films, and recited to these in ...
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In 1911, the former actor Eric Williams started a new career reciting to his own specially made films. Over the next few years he produced and acted in some dozen films, and recited to these in numerous theaters throughout the United Kingdom.The film narratives were based on pre-existing texts, such as scenes from Shakespeare or popular ballads by the likes of Frederick Weatherly or G. R. Sims. Williams had evident talent as an “elocutionist,” but the chapter argues that his appeal was also founded on a unique fusion of three factors: his films were specially made and not off the shelf, he appeared both in the film and reciting live in the theater, and he lip-synced some of the lines of the on-screen performers.Less
In 1911, the former actor Eric Williams started a new career reciting to his own specially made films. Over the next few years he produced and acted in some dozen films, and recited to these in numerous theaters throughout the United Kingdom.The film narratives were based on pre-existing texts, such as scenes from Shakespeare or popular ballads by the likes of Frederick Weatherly or G. R. Sims. Williams had evident talent as an “elocutionist,” but the chapter argues that his appeal was also founded on a unique fusion of three factors: his films were specially made and not off the shelf, he appeared both in the film and reciting live in the theater, and he lip-synced some of the lines of the on-screen performers.
Raymond Boyle and Richard Haynes
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748635924
- eISBN:
- 9780748671083
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748635924.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
Examines the role sport plays in celebrity culture. Looks at how television and the media create sports stars. It examines the implications of this process for the media and sport.
Examines the role sport plays in celebrity culture. Looks at how television and the media create sports stars. It examines the implications of this process for the media and sport.
Jonathan Rayner
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748623440
- eISBN:
- 9780748651115
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748623440.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The musical biopic's complex articulation of the relationship between ‘life’ and ‘art’ raises issues also presented by the tradition of the rockumentary. Two notable Australian feature films of the ...
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The musical biopic's complex articulation of the relationship between ‘life’ and ‘art’ raises issues also presented by the tradition of the rockumentary. Two notable Australian feature films of the 1990s, Muriel's Wedding (1994) and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), foreground the music of ABBA in self-conscious ways, connecting the films' narratives with the group's popularity. In particular, ABBA's significance to Australian popular culture is encapsulated in the feature film that centres on their tour of Australia in the 1970s: ABBA The Movie (1977). The ironic stance towards ABBA fandom in the 1990s was prefigured in the paradoxical attitude to stardom, and the fans' ownership of band, music and meaning, seen in ABBA The Movie. This chapter argues how ABBA The Movie (1977) helped to circulate star meanings attached to the band as well as being a way for the fans to have a form of access to their heroes. Its focus on the camp and ironic aspects to ABBA's Australian reception leads to a discussion of The Adventures of Priscilla and Muriel's Wedding.Less
The musical biopic's complex articulation of the relationship between ‘life’ and ‘art’ raises issues also presented by the tradition of the rockumentary. Two notable Australian feature films of the 1990s, Muriel's Wedding (1994) and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), foreground the music of ABBA in self-conscious ways, connecting the films' narratives with the group's popularity. In particular, ABBA's significance to Australian popular culture is encapsulated in the feature film that centres on their tour of Australia in the 1970s: ABBA The Movie (1977). The ironic stance towards ABBA fandom in the 1990s was prefigured in the paradoxical attitude to stardom, and the fans' ownership of band, music and meaning, seen in ABBA The Movie. This chapter argues how ABBA The Movie (1977) helped to circulate star meanings attached to the band as well as being a way for the fans to have a form of access to their heroes. Its focus on the camp and ironic aspects to ABBA's Australian reception leads to a discussion of The Adventures of Priscilla and Muriel's Wedding.
David Looseley
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781781382578
- eISBN:
- 9781786945280
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781382578.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
The chapter begins with a brief biography of Piaf’s early years as a singer but focuses primarily on how the Piaf myth—the imagined Piaf that France and the world would come to know--was invented. ...
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The chapter begins with a brief biography of Piaf’s early years as a singer but focuses primarily on how the Piaf myth—the imagined Piaf that France and the world would come to know--was invented. The process of invention was the work initially of Piaf herself, who fabricated a life story almost from the beginning. But she was soon joined in this task by her first impresario, Raymond Asso, who wrote the lyrics for many of her early songs, and Marguerite Monnot, who composed the music. This team, progressively joined by others, worked together to produce a new iteration of the well-known realist song genre: Piaf’s songs were read through the narratives of the singer’s life, but, at the same time, those narratives were themselves read through the songs. This reciprocal identification between song and life would form the core meaning of Piaf’s stardom.Less
The chapter begins with a brief biography of Piaf’s early years as a singer but focuses primarily on how the Piaf myth—the imagined Piaf that France and the world would come to know--was invented. The process of invention was the work initially of Piaf herself, who fabricated a life story almost from the beginning. But she was soon joined in this task by her first impresario, Raymond Asso, who wrote the lyrics for many of her early songs, and Marguerite Monnot, who composed the music. This team, progressively joined by others, worked together to produce a new iteration of the well-known realist song genre: Piaf’s songs were read through the narratives of the singer’s life, but, at the same time, those narratives were themselves read through the songs. This reciprocal identification between song and life would form the core meaning of Piaf’s stardom.
Phil Powrie and Éric Rebillard
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748621972
- eISBN:
- 9780748651191
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748621972.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Pierre Batcheff was labelled the best French actor of the period 1925–1929 by Georges Sadoul in 1975. He was one of the foremost jeunes premiers of the 1920s, a term normally taken to refer to ...
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Pierre Batcheff was labelled the best French actor of the period 1925–1929 by Georges Sadoul in 1975. He was one of the foremost jeunes premiers of the 1920s, a term normally taken to refer to handsome young actors who played young lover roles. His biography is striking for his rapid rise to stardom and the fact that he was, unlike many of his peers, an unwilling star. He considered the majority of the films he acted in to be no more than hack work, and longed to become a director. His desire to be more than just a commercial star increased following Un Chien andalou, for which he collaborated closely with Luis Buñuel. Not long afterwards, he met Jacques Prévert and his entourage, with whom he planned screenplays for films that he might direct. This chapter outlines the major elements of Batcheff's life as an unwilling star. It looks at his origins and childhood, his rise to stardom, his transition from the mainstream to the avant-garde, his association with the lacoudems, and his early death.Less
Pierre Batcheff was labelled the best French actor of the period 1925–1929 by Georges Sadoul in 1975. He was one of the foremost jeunes premiers of the 1920s, a term normally taken to refer to handsome young actors who played young lover roles. His biography is striking for his rapid rise to stardom and the fact that he was, unlike many of his peers, an unwilling star. He considered the majority of the films he acted in to be no more than hack work, and longed to become a director. His desire to be more than just a commercial star increased following Un Chien andalou, for which he collaborated closely with Luis Buñuel. Not long afterwards, he met Jacques Prévert and his entourage, with whom he planned screenplays for films that he might direct. This chapter outlines the major elements of Batcheff's life as an unwilling star. It looks at his origins and childhood, his rise to stardom, his transition from the mainstream to the avant-garde, his association with the lacoudems, and his early death.
Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520295049
- eISBN:
- 9780520967946
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520295049.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Radio
Reluctant, young Sadye Marks becomes drawn into vaudeville and radio performance through marriage to Jack Benny. The character created for her by Harry Conn, Mary Livingstone, becomes a popular and ...
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Reluctant, young Sadye Marks becomes drawn into vaudeville and radio performance through marriage to Jack Benny. The character created for her by Harry Conn, Mary Livingstone, becomes a popular and unique character in American entertainment. As Jack’s sometimes-secretary and chief heckler, Mary criticizes men with remarkable freedom, yet also retains her independence and attractiveness, much like Hollywood heroines of the 1930s, and yet Mary never has to get married in the final reel. Mary Livingstone had great cultural impact, and star status, in the 1930s as a comic “Unruly Woman.” After World War II, however, Mary’s inhibitions drew her away from the microphone, and her delightfully tart tongue was heard less frequently. With a fascinating affinity for a feminist viewpoint, female characters in the Benny show narrative universe were tough and usually prevailed over the men.Less
Reluctant, young Sadye Marks becomes drawn into vaudeville and radio performance through marriage to Jack Benny. The character created for her by Harry Conn, Mary Livingstone, becomes a popular and unique character in American entertainment. As Jack’s sometimes-secretary and chief heckler, Mary criticizes men with remarkable freedom, yet also retains her independence and attractiveness, much like Hollywood heroines of the 1930s, and yet Mary never has to get married in the final reel. Mary Livingstone had great cultural impact, and star status, in the 1930s as a comic “Unruly Woman.” After World War II, however, Mary’s inhibitions drew her away from the microphone, and her delightfully tart tongue was heard less frequently. With a fascinating affinity for a feminist viewpoint, female characters in the Benny show narrative universe were tough and usually prevailed over the men.
Sue Collins
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520291508
- eISBN:
- 9780520965263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520291508.003.0016
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter, by Sue Collins, historicizes Hollywood stardom’s legitimation as a source of political authority during World War I and World War II. It charts film stars’ participation in war ...
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This chapter, by Sue Collins, historicizes Hollywood stardom’s legitimation as a source of political authority during World War I and World War II. It charts film stars’ participation in war mobilization from the Liberty Loan bond drives of World War I to the star appearances, war relief, and USO activities managed by the Hollywood Victory Committee during the World War II. By showing how the government’s valorization of the popular became a mode of authority exploitable for propaganda, the chapter argues that the stars’ war work established a new logic for celebrity as a crucial personification of state discourse and cultural policy supporting state power during wartime.Less
This chapter, by Sue Collins, historicizes Hollywood stardom’s legitimation as a source of political authority during World War I and World War II. It charts film stars’ participation in war mobilization from the Liberty Loan bond drives of World War I to the star appearances, war relief, and USO activities managed by the Hollywood Victory Committee during the World War II. By showing how the government’s valorization of the popular became a mode of authority exploitable for propaganda, the chapter argues that the stars’ war work established a new logic for celebrity as a crucial personification of state discourse and cultural policy supporting state power during wartime.
Rayna Denison
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190261122
- eISBN:
- 9780190261153
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190261122.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, History, American, History, Western
This chapter investigates Japan’s thriving system of voice actors, a part of its larger transmedia star system, in order to understand how that system might be instigating particular performance ...
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This chapter investigates Japan’s thriving system of voice actors, a part of its larger transmedia star system, in order to understand how that system might be instigating particular performance styles. Voice acting in Japan has become a major star system in its own right, with training schools, agencies, and live events supporting and promoting the creation of voice stars. Within this system one medium, anime, has become the locus for star voice creations, and is used as a case study here. This chapter takes the two production cycles around Fullmetal Alchemist as an example in order to show how voice performances signal the presence of stars, even when actresses perform roles across gender, age, and culture gaps. Focusing on Rie Kugimiya and Romi Park, Fullmetal Alchemist is used as a means to think about how and when voice stars become discernible and how their star presences are nurtured by industry.Less
This chapter investigates Japan’s thriving system of voice actors, a part of its larger transmedia star system, in order to understand how that system might be instigating particular performance styles. Voice acting in Japan has become a major star system in its own right, with training schools, agencies, and live events supporting and promoting the creation of voice stars. Within this system one medium, anime, has become the locus for star voice creations, and is used as a case study here. This chapter takes the two production cycles around Fullmetal Alchemist as an example in order to show how voice performances signal the presence of stars, even when actresses perform roles across gender, age, and culture gaps. Focusing on Rie Kugimiya and Romi Park, Fullmetal Alchemist is used as a means to think about how and when voice stars become discernible and how their star presences are nurtured by industry.
Ben McCann
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719091148
- eISBN:
- 9781526124111
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719091148.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This opening chapter will contextualise the ‘Duvivier style’. It will look at his chief formative influence, André Antoine, whose influential theories on cinematic naturalism, location shooting, and ...
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This opening chapter will contextualise the ‘Duvivier style’. It will look at his chief formative influence, André Antoine, whose influential theories on cinematic naturalism, location shooting, and performance authenticity was cultivated and developed by Duvivier throughout his career.
The chapter will examine what makes a Duvivier film. Historians often make reference to Duvivier’s love of ‘work well done’ as his signature legacy and enduring film-making ethos. The chapter will introduce the key recognisable Duvivier traits: an expressive mise en scène, fluid camera movement and a complex negotiation of décor, strong central performances by stars and new actors, pessimistic narratives, incorporation of melodramatic elements (music, production design), and a film-by-film reliability. This analysis of Duvivier, beyond its historical range, also proposes to engage with key debates in film studies: notably auteurism, stardom and audience reception.
The chapter will also look at how Duvivier fits into a history of both French national cinema and international film production. Duvivier’s genre eclecticism and lack of a coherent corpus should not be seen as a negative; instead, it is necessary to read Duvivier’s wide-ranging approach to genre and subject matter as a response to and engagement with important development in French and international film praxis.Less
This opening chapter will contextualise the ‘Duvivier style’. It will look at his chief formative influence, André Antoine, whose influential theories on cinematic naturalism, location shooting, and performance authenticity was cultivated and developed by Duvivier throughout his career.
The chapter will examine what makes a Duvivier film. Historians often make reference to Duvivier’s love of ‘work well done’ as his signature legacy and enduring film-making ethos. The chapter will introduce the key recognisable Duvivier traits: an expressive mise en scène, fluid camera movement and a complex negotiation of décor, strong central performances by stars and new actors, pessimistic narratives, incorporation of melodramatic elements (music, production design), and a film-by-film reliability. This analysis of Duvivier, beyond its historical range, also proposes to engage with key debates in film studies: notably auteurism, stardom and audience reception.
The chapter will also look at how Duvivier fits into a history of both French national cinema and international film production. Duvivier’s genre eclecticism and lack of a coherent corpus should not be seen as a negative; instead, it is necessary to read Duvivier’s wide-ranging approach to genre and subject matter as a response to and engagement with important development in French and international film praxis.
