scholarly journals The Birth of a Hollywood Spectacle: Visual Expression and Narrative Functions of Costumes in Cecil B. DeMille’s Silent Films

2021 ◽  
pp. 252-285
Author(s):  
T.V. Bakina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Costume Design ◽  
Design Methods ◽  
American Film ◽  
Production Standard ◽  
Silent Films ◽  
New Production ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
Narrative Functions

The article explores the functions of film costumes in the works of Cecil B. DeMille, the American film director, whose pictures of the late 1910s and early 1920s are notable for their artistic achievements in the field of set and costume design. On the material of certain films from his “matrimonial cycle”, the author analyses the narrative and spectacular functions of costumes, while making an emphasis on the director’s role in the development of the artistic uniqueness and visual extravagance of Hollywood films of this period. The films of this cycle display some key strategies in film costume function- ing and design methods that would be adopted by the Hollywood film industry to become the new production standard in this field.

Harry Langdon

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriella Oldham ◽  
Mabel Langdon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
American Film ◽  
Silent Films ◽  
Charlie Chaplin ◽  
American Film Industry

Harry Langdon (1884–1944) was a silent comedian in the early days of the American film industry. Although he is often compared with other silent comedians of the era, including Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd, Langdon’s career is underappreciated. Following a series of disastrous professional and personal missteps, Langdon faced demotion from his place as a king of silent comedy. The advent of talkies did not bode well for him, as his greatest strengths were rendered irrelevant. He was largely forgotten until audiences in the 1970s became reacquainted with his work nearly three decades after his death. In Harry Langdon: King of Silent Comedy, author Gabriella Oldham claims that Langdon’s catalog of work merits an equal rank alongside his great contemporaries. This biography seeks not only to redeem Langdon’s position in the pantheon of silent comedians but also to accurately portray his life story. The narrative of Langdon’s life explores his early work on the stage at the turn of the twentieth century, his iconic routines and persona in silent films, and his checkered career in the early sound period. This invaluable biography of Langdon relies on film screenings, files, and interviews with those who were closest to him to capture his true genius during the time when comedy was king.

scholarly journals Asian representation and anti-Asian racism in contemporary Hollywood film

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
American Film ◽  
The West ◽  
East Asians ◽  
Hollywood Film

From early in the 20th century, the Hollywood film industry has played a major role in the racialization of visibly identifiable ethnic groups in the West. Asians, and in particular East Asians, have traditionally been characterised by Hollywood as aliens. Originally such characterizations served to extol the virtues of the West by contrast with the East and to express xenophobic anxieties in movie narratives. In recent decades, corresponding to the development of the Hollywood "blockbuster", the Asian has been depicted in a more positive, idealized light, yet s/he has continued to be depicted as the archetypal Other. This paper explores portrayals of Asians in several recent Hollywood blockbusters, asserting that the under-representation of racially Asian actors onscreen throughout the West is directly related to, among other factors, the continued stereotyping of Asians and Asianness in popular American film.

scholarly journals Asian representation and anti-Asian racism in contemporary Hollywood film

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
American Film ◽  
The West ◽  
East Asians ◽  
Hollywood Film

From early in the 20th century, the Hollywood film industry has played a major role in the racialization of visibly identifiable ethnic groups in the West. Asians, and in particular East Asians, have traditionally been characterised by Hollywood as aliens. Originally such characterizations served to extol the virtues of the West by contrast with the East and to express xenophobic anxieties in movie narratives. In recent decades, corresponding to the development of the Hollywood "blockbuster", the Asian has been depicted in a more positive, idealized light, yet s/he has continued to be depicted as the archetypal Other. This paper explores portrayals of Asians in several recent Hollywood blockbusters, asserting that the under-representation of racially Asian actors onscreen throughout the West is directly related to, among other factors, the continued stereotyping of Asians and Asianness in popular American film.

Evangelical Audiences and “Hollywood” Film: Promoting Fireproof (2008)

2010 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES RUSSELL
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
American Film ◽  
American Population ◽  
Evangelical Christians ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
American Film Industry

By any criteria, Evangelical Christians constitute a significant segment of the American population, but they have always been a difficult audience for the American film industry to target, because many Evangelicals view themselves as ideologically opposed to Hollywood – a fraught relationship often referred to as the “Culture Wars.” This essay uses the recent hit Fireproof (2008) to examine the complex relationship between Hollywood, Evangelical audiences and independent Christian film producers.

Korngold and His World

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Chamber Music ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
American Film ◽  
Popular Song ◽  
Film Scores ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Erich Wolfgang Korngold ◽  
American Popular Song

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957) was the last compositional prodigy to emerge from the Austro-German tradition of Mozart and Mendelssohn. He was lauded in his youth by everyone from Mahler to Puccini and his auspicious career in the early 1900s spanned chamber music, opera, and musical theater. Today, he is best known for his Hollywood film scores, composed between 1935 and 1947. From his prewar operas in Vienna to his pathbreaking contributions to American film, this book provides a substantial reassessment of Korngold's life and accomplishments. Korngold struggled to reconcile the musical language of his Viennese upbringing with American popular song and cinema, and was forced to adapt to a new life after wartime emigration to Hollywood. The book examines Korngold's operas and film scores, the critical reception of his music, and his place in the milieus of both the Old and New Worlds. It also features numerous historical documents—many previously unpublished and in first-ever English translations—including essays by the composer as well as memoirs by his wife, Luzi Korngold, and his father, the renowned music critic Julius Korngold.

Blind Trust: Market Control, Legal Environments, and the Dynamics of Competitive Intensity in the Early American Film Industry, 1893–1920

2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Mezias ◽  
Elizabeth Boyle
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
American Film ◽  
Market Control ◽  
Early American ◽  
Short Films ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Trust Law ◽  
American Film Industry ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Mortality Analysis

This study of the emergence of the film industry in the U.S. between 1893 and 1920 contributes to the growing literature linking legal environments and population dynamics. This was an era characterized by a shift to active anti-trust policy, which manifested itself in legal action to disband a trust that had dominated the industry, the Motion Pictures Patents Corporation (MPPC). We use archival data to show that mortality was reduced by trust membership and increased with the market share of the trust members. The effects of litigation are varied, with litigation filed by trust members enhancing mortality and litigation filed against trust members decreasing mortality. Analysis of coded headlines from media reports on the emerging industry shows that a shift in the view of the trust in the normative environment toward a more negative view was also associated with decreased mortality. Results also show that learning and the compensatory fitness enjoyed before anti-trust law was enforced prevented the MPPC members from recognizing changes in the marketplace; as a result, they were less likely to move from making short films to making increasingly popular feature-length films.

Susanne Bier’s Hollywood Experiments: Things We Lost in the Fire and Serena

2018 ◽  
pp. 56-78
Author(s):  
Missy Molloy
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
New Production ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
International Audience ◽  
Post Production ◽  
Production Conditions

“Susanne Bier’s Hollywood Experiments: Things We Lost in the Fire and Serena” explores the lackluster responses to Bier’s first English-language productions, often referred to as her ‘Hollywood films’. Author Missy Molloy surveys a variety of sources related to the films’ productions and receptions to reveal the challenges Bier faced transitioning to new production contexts. Moreover, while the films demonstrate Bier’s willingness to experiment with unfamiliar genres and production conditions, they also reaffirm her attractions to specific cinematic subjects, images, and narrative scenarios. Thus, these less successful films provide information relevant to the project of tracing Bier’s authorial influence across a body of extremely varied works. Furthermore, the fact that her authorial influence was somewhat muted in her first ‘Hollywood’ films—due to her signing on late in pre-production as well as complications that arose during post-production— indicates that in Bier’s case, early involvement allows her to affect the characters and narratives to the extent that they reflect career-long preoccupations, which manifested in Things We Lost in the Fire and Serena to a degree that didn’t significantly appeal to either her domestic or international audience. The chapter complements Langkjær’s and Agger’s attentions to more successful films by highlighting that Bier’s approach to genre is expansive, even when it does not produce desirable results. Molloy concludes that less effective elements of Bier’s cinematic strategies are results, at least partly, of bad timing. She further argues that reception prejudices played a role in Things We Lost in the Fire and Serena’s failures to land with audiences.

Training the Body Politic: Networked Masculinity and the ‘War on Terror’ in Hollywood Film

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Knee
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
James Bond ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
Political Perspective

Adam Knee continues this discussion of the action/adventure genre in Chapter Seven, "Training the Body Politic: Networked Masculinity and the 'War on Terror' in Hollywood Film", offering a detailed analysis of the representation of masculinity and agency in two Hollywood films, Unstoppable (2010) and Source Code (2011), which exhibit striking similarities at a range of levels, from their narratives to deeper structures of gendered character function, theme, and geo-political perspective that, he contends, are a manifestation of distinctly post-9/11 American concerns. Like Vincent M. Gaine's chapter on James Bond, Knee analyses both the variations inherent in the genre in the wake of 9/11 and the consistencies of the parameters of American mainstream film, and, more specifically, a developing conceptualization of modes of disciplined masculinity necessitated by the nation’s 'War on Terror' narrative. Knee then concludes with a comparative analysis of a pre-9/11 film and its post-9/11 remake in which these parameters are brought to the fore: the original Paul Verhoeven RoboCop (1987) and RoboCop (2014) directed by José Padilha.

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