Robert Altman and the Elaboration of Hollywood Storytelling

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Minett
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Standard Account ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
New Hollywood ◽  
Media Institutions ◽  
Robert Altman ◽  
Classical Hollywood

Robert Altman and the Elaboration of Hollywood Storytelling reveals an Altman barely glimpsed in previous critical accounts of the filmmaker. This re-examination of his seminal work during the “Hollywood Renaissance” or “New Hollywood” period of the early 1970s (including M*A*S*H, Brewster McCloud, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Images, The Long Goodbye, Thieves Like Us, California Split, and Nashville) sheds new light on both the films and the filmmaker, reframing Altman as a complex, pragmatic innovator whose work exceeds, but is also grounded in, the norms of classical Hollywood storytelling rather than someone who rejected those norms in favor of modernist art cinema. Its findings and approach hold important implications for the study of cinematic authorship. Largely avoiding thematic exegesis, it employs a historical poetics approach, robust functionalist frameworks, archival research, and formal and statistical analysis to demystify the essential features of the standard account of Altman’s filmmaking history and profile—lax narrative form, heavy reliance on the zoom, sound design replete with overlapping dialogue, improvisational infidelity to the screenplay, and a desire to subvert based in his time in the training grounds of industrial filmmaking and filmed television. The book provides a clear example of how a filmmaker might work collaboratively and pragmatically within and across media institutions to elaborate on their sanctioned practices and aims. We misunderstand Altman’s work, and the creative work of Hollywood filmmakers in general, when we insist on describing innovation as opposition to institutional norms and on describing those norms as simply assimilating innovation.

scholarly journals THE RESEARCH OF SENTENCE LENGTH, WORDS AND PERIODICITY OF WORD FORMS IN THE COLLECTIONS OF PETRO KARMANSKY

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (87) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liliia Solovei ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Standard Deviation ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Maximum Value ◽  
The World ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Individual Style ◽  
Linguistic Means

This work researched the linguostatistical indicators of poetic works of P. Karmansky, in particular the lengths of sentences, words and word forms are comprehensively calculated and analyzed. The following values that characterize the poet’s idiostyle are calculated: the number of values (n); maximum value (max); minimum value (min); scope (R); fashion (Mo); median (Md); average (X ̇); standard deviation (σ); coefficient of variation (V); standard error (Sx ̇); relative error (ε). The main object of study of the writer’s idiostyle is the language of his works of art, the set of linguistic means that decide the artist as an individual among others. The unified basis of all units of idiosyncrasy is the author’s worldview. Therefore, the problem of studying individual style is closely related to the problems of the linguistic picture of the world and the linguistic personality of the writer. P. Karmansky’s poetry is an interesting and little-studied phenomenon in Ukrainian literature. In listening to a number of researchers considered the life of P. Karmansky, separately thematic work, characterized by the peculiarities of those who compose his poetics. Instead, the creative work of P. Karmansky did not become the object of linguistic and statistical analysis, which determines the relevance and novelty of the study. The research corpus systematizes the author's poetry is systematized on the basis of his collections, publications in contemporary periodicals and manuscripts. The material of the study was the texts of Petro Karmansky’s collection «Poeziyi», published in Kyiv by «Ukrayinskyy pysmennyk» in 1992, which is considered one of the most complete collections, containing previously unpublished poems (the total number of poems in this collection - 334). The analysis showed that Karmansky used to use sentences of four words and words of four letters. The list of the nine most common word forms that appeared in Karmansky’s selected poems is «і» – 1714 times, «в» – 1157 times, «не» – 605 разів, «з» – 532, «на» – 507, «що» – 461, «як» – 429, «я» – 326, «а» – 207. It turns out how the poetic handwriting of the artist changed during his life.It turns out how the poetic handwriting of the artist changed during his life.

George Cukor’s Late Style

George Cukor ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Morrison
Keyword(s):  
New Techniques ◽  
Late Style ◽  
New Hollywood ◽  
Production Code ◽  
Post Production ◽  
Classical Hollywood

This chapter explores the tensions in Cukor's late style through three of his later films. Justine (1969) is Cukor's most sustained encounter with modernism and his most vigorous effort to engage with stylistic and narrative “advances” of the New Hollywood. Travels With My Aunt (1972) is something of a retrenchment, unapologetically “old-fashioned” in many ways, yet selectively incorporating new techniques and post-Production Code material in a manner that illustrates Cukor's attitude toward the new dispensation. Rich and Famous (1981) synthesizes these approaches, harking back to Classical Hollywood after the New Hollywood itself had waned, yet it evinces a certain surface chic more effortlessly than any of Cukor's other late films.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Bruce Isaacs
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Rear Window ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
New Hollywood ◽  
Mise En Scene ◽  
Film Style ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Lengthy Discussion

Hitchcock’s clearest articulation of a pure cinema method appears in a lengthy discussion with François Truffaut in 1962. Discussing landmark works such as Rear Window and Vertigo, Hitchcock frames pure cinema as a philosophical approach to film style. It is both medium-specific and part of a larger narrative describing the evolution of moving image art forms in the twentieth century. The introduction situates the relationship between Hitchcock and his “imitators,” filmmakers who reflexively evolved the pure cinema method. Brian De Palma emerges in the 1970s as the Hitchcockian imitator par excellence, the New Hollywood director who strove to take Hitchcock’s pure cinematic method further in terms of mise en scène, montage, and sound design.

Film Sound Design

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Film Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Sound Effects ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Classical Hollywood ◽  
Film Sound

Sound design is a relatively recent term, first used to credit Walter Murch’s work on Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979). Murch has frequently drawn an analogy between how he perceived his role as decorating the three-dimensional film theater with sound and the work of an interior designer who decorates an architectural space (LoBrutto 1994, p. 92, cited under Key Practitioners: Compilations). Sound design is also a topic of increasing interest within film music scholarship, particularly its history and how it might be analyzed. The history of sound design is inextricably bound up with the history of technology, notably the emergence of Dolby in the 1970s. In his Oxford Bibliographies article “Music and Cinema, Classical Hollywood,” David Neumeyer noted in the introduction that the end of the Classical Hollywood era could be situated c. 1972 when the “contemporary era of sound design began in earnest,” and this particular period is indeed crucial. Yet, this is not to suggest that the history of film sound design is brief; in fact, it has a long history of antecedents that have shaped the role of the sound designer into a somewhat fluid concept. As of the early 21st century, no consensus has been reached on the definition of “sound design” in current research; however, the distinction between sound design as the work of one individual as opposed to a mode of practice is apparent. Furthermore, “sound designer” also has a professional meaning; in the United States the labor union defines the sound designer as a person who designs the sound effects. Some scholars expound this relatively narrow definition of sound design as akin to sound effects editing in the post-production process, whereas others see it as a broad undertaking, concerned with every aspect of the sonic environment. Murch encourages a broader definition of the sound designer as “someone who plans, creates the sound effects and mixes the final soundtrack, and thereby takes responsibility for the sound of a film the way a director of photography takes responsibility for the image” (Murch 1995, p. 246, cited under Key Practitioners: Articles). Sound design can encapsulate all components of film sound, including music, dialogue, sound effects, and voiceovers. This holistic understanding of the term is reflected in a significant interdisciplinary edition that takes the concept of the integrated soundtrack as a central theme (Greene and Kulezic-Wilson 2016, cited under Analyzing Film Sound Design). Sound design can involve conceptualization and practical efforts as well as cooperation with the director, producer, composer, editors, and other creative personnel. Sound designer Randy Thom has highlighted the importance of developing opportunities for the creative use of sound when making a film and has appealed for filmmakers to design their films for sound (Thom 1999, cited under Key Practitioners: Articles). The combination of creativity, technical expertise, and the ability to conceptualize innovative interactions between sound and image inherent in the concept is reflected in the very title of “sound designer,” a label that is not officially recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards. With the growing popularity of the term among some industry professionals, it is becoming common for sound artists to claim the credit “sound designer” in addition to those for recognized roles such as “sound editor” or “re-recording engineer” (Whittington 2007, p. 26, cited under Histories and Definitions of Sound Design). Within film music studies, the concept of sound design is increasingly used as a filter for analysis of a film’s soundscape, and thus publications now address how to analyze more complex film soundtracks. The focus of this article is divided into three broad strands: textbooks that give practical and technical direction for film sound design or aspects of it, literature on the history of sound design and the purview of the sound designer, and publications about and interviews with key practitioners.

scholarly journals The Contributions of Immigrants to American Culture

Daedalus ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 142 (3) ◽  
pp. 26-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Hirschman
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Career Paths ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
American Culture ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Standard Account ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Creation ◽  
American Society

The standard account of American immigration focuses on the acculturation and assimilation of immigrants and their children to American society. This analysis typically ignores the significant contributions of immigrants to the creation of American culture through the performing arts, sciences, and other cultural pursuits. Immigrants and their children are not born with more creative talents than native-born citizens, but their selectivity and marginality may have pushed and pulled those with ability into high-risk career paths that reward creative work. The presence of large numbers of talented immigrants in Hollywood, academia, and the high-tech industries has pushed American institutions to be more meritocratic and open to innovation than they would be otherwise.

Film, Cinema, Genre

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Neale
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Film Noir ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
Undergraduate Level ◽  
New Hollywood ◽  
University Courses ◽  
The Subject

This book brings together key works by pioneering film studies scholar Steve Neale. From the 1970s to the 2010s Neale’s vital and unparalleled contribution to the subject has shaped many of the critical agendas that helped to confirm film studies’ position as an innovative discipline within the humanities. Although known primarily for his work on genre, Neale has written on a far wider range of topics. In addition to selections from the influential volumes Genre (1980) and Genre and Hollywood (2000), and articles scrutinizing individual genres – the melodrama, the war film, science fiction and film noir – this Reader provides critical examinations of cinema and technology, art cinema, gender and cinema, stereotypes and representation, cinema history, the film industry, New Hollywood, and film analysis. Many of the articles included are recommended reading for a range of university courses worldwide, making the volume useful to students at undergraduate level and above, researchers, and teachers of film studies, media studies, gender studies and cultural studies. The collection has been selected and edited by Frank Krutnik and Richard Maltby, scholars who have worked closely with Neale and been inspired by his diverse and often provocative critical innovations. Their introduction assesses the significance of Neale’s work, and contextualizes it within the development of UK film studies.

Kaufman’s Dissensus

2018 ◽  
pp. 63-81
Author(s):  
James Harvey
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
American Art ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Critique ◽  
Art Cinema ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Visual Style ◽  
Formal Innovation ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Classical Hollywood

Exploring the tensions between the themes and visual style, Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York is an exemplary manifestation of dissensus: ‘the presence of two worlds in one’ (Rancière, 2010: 37). Staging and subsequently thwarting middle-class America and classical Hollywood style, the film ultimately allows us to envision ways of being beyond the apparent “end of history”. Yet, in so doing, the film also highlights the tendency towards irony in contemporary American art cinema: a feedback-loop, art-housing the art film spectator safely, intellectually, inside the space of the film. This takes us to the political impasse of art cinema in general: when formal innovation meets cultural critique, a redistribution of the sensible occurs and makes possible subsequent changes outside of the cinema.

Robert Altman

2019 ◽  
pp. 69-85
Author(s):  
David Sterritt
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Hollywood Cinema ◽  
New Hollywood ◽  
Dark Comedy ◽  
Robert Altman ◽  
Comedy Film

Robert Altman helped define New Hollywood cinema with the dark comedy film MASH in 1970 and helped close out the era with the surreal 3 Women in 1977. But Altman was an unlikely New Hollywood icon; New Hollywood auteurs were supposed to be young movie brats straight from film school, whereas Altman was a forty-something autodidact who had learned his craft making industrial and educational pictures. This chapter focuses on three of Altman’s most important and influential films: the 1971 western McCabe & Mrs. Miller, which builds extraordinary emotional power while radically revising both the myth of the frontier and a key Hollywood genre; the 1975 musical Nashville, a large-canvas portrait of modern-day American politics, patriotism, popular culture, and celebrity; and the oneiric 3 Women, a small-canvas dreamscape that marks the outer limits of New Hollywood iconoclasm.

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