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This is a study of the collaborative creation behind literary works that are usually considered to be written by a single author. Although most theories of interpretation and editing depend on a concept of single authorship, many works are actually developed by more than one author. Stillinger examines case histories from Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Mill, and T.S. Eliot, as well as from American fiction, plays, and films, demonstrating that multiple authorship is a widespread phenomenon. He shows that the reality of how an author produces a work is often more complex than is expressed in the romantic notion of the author as solitary genius. The cumulative evidence revealed in this engaging study indicates that collaboration deserves to be included in any account of authorial achievement.
John McCabe's participation in the writing of James Cagney's autobiography, the many years of friendship that followed, and an intense period of interview and discussion in preparation for a musical comedy based on Cagney's life--a show that never saw the light of day--make him Cagney's ideal biographer. And, indeed, he has written a searching chronicle of this major actor's life and career, packed with history and anecdote, and profusely illustrated. Cagney came from a poor Irish-American New York family but once he found his métier as an actor, it was not long before he was recognized as a brilliantly energetic and powerful phenomenon. After the tremendous impact of Public Enemy--in which he notoriously pushed half a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face--he was typecast as a gangster because of the terrifying violence that seemed to be pent up within him. Years of pitched battle with Warner Brothers finally liberated him from those roles, and he went on to star in such triumphs as the musicals Yankee Doodle Dandy (winning the 1942 Oscar for best actor) and Love Me or Leave Me. Even so, one of his greatest later roles involved a return to crime--as the psychopathic killer in the terrifying White Heat. He retired from films in 1961 after making Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three, only to return twenty years later for Ragtime. But however much Cagney personified violence and explosive energy on the screen, in life he was a quiet, introspective, and deeply private man, a poet, painter, and environmentalist, whose marriage to his early vaudeville partner was famously loyal and happy. His story is one of the few Hollywood biographies that reflect a fulfilled life as well as a spectacular career.
One of the biggest stars of the golden age of Hollywood, James Cagney appeared in more than sixty films throughout his career. In addition to starring in the classics White Heat, Mister Roberts, and One, Two, Three, Cagney received the Academy Award for his performance as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. From his debut in Sinner’s Holiday to one of his many gangster portrayals in The Roaring Twenties, the actor appeared in more than thirty films of the 1930s. Though he started out in supporting roles, Cagney quickly became a leading man and by the end of the decade, he was a box-office star. In James Cagney Films of the 1930s, James L. Neibaur reviews the first decade of the great actor’s work. A film-by-film look at Cagney’s movies during this pivotal period, this book traces the actor’s transition from a song-and-dance man on stage to a tough guy on screen. Although Cagney occasionally was able to deviate from studio typecasting—in such films as Footlight Parade and A Midsummer Night’s Dream—his most notable roles were in gangster dramas like The Public Enemy and Angels with Dirty Faces. Throughout this book, Neibaur provides readers with plot summaries, production details, and critical and commercial reception of each film. For fans of the actor’s work, James Cagney Films of the 1930s is an invaluable resource that will also appeal to anyone interested in movie-making during one of Hollywood’s greatest eras.
From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, behind the scenes at the legendary Warner Brothers film studio, where four immigrant brothers transformed themselves into the moguls and masters of American fantasy Warner Bros charts the rise of an unpromising film studio from its shaky beginnings in the early twentieth century through its ascent to the pinnacle of Hollywood influence and popularity. The Warner Brothers--Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack--arrived in America as unschooled Jewish immigrants, yet they founded a studio that became the smartest, toughest, and most radical in all of Hollywood. David Thomson provides fascinating and original interpretations of Warner Brothers pictures from the pioneering talkie The Jazz Singer through black-and-white musicals, gangster movies, and such dramatic romances as Casablanca, East of Eden, and Bonnie and Clyde. He recounts the storied exploits of the studio's larger-than-life stars, among them Al Jolson, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Doris Day, and Bugs Bunny. The Warner brothers' cultural impact was so profound, Thomson writes, that their studio became "one of the enterprises that helped us see there might be an American dream out there." About Jewish Lives: Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present. In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award. More praise for Jewish Lives: "Excellent." -New York Times "Exemplary." -Wall Street Journal "Distinguished." -New Yorker "Superb." -The Guardian
Using the same mix of accessibility and insider knowledge he used so successfully in Complicated Women, author and film critic Mick LaSalle now turns his attention to the men of the pre-Code Hollywood era. The five years between 1929 and mid-1934 was a period of loosened censorship that finally ended with the imposition of a harsh Production Code that would, for the next thirty-four years, censor much of the life and honesty out of American movies. Dangerous Men takes a close look at the images of manhood during this pre-Code era, which coincided with an interesting time for men--the culmination of a generation-long transformation in the masculine ideal. By the late twenties, the tumult of a new century had made the nineteenth century's notion of the ideal man seem like a repressed stuffed shirt, a deluded optimist. The smiling, confident hero of just a few years before fell out of favor, and the new heroes who emerged were gangsters, opportunists, sleazy businessmen, shifty lawyers, shell-shocked soldiers--men whose existence threatened the status quo. In this book, LaSalle highlights such household names as James Cagney, Clark Gable, Edward G. Robinson, Maurice Chevalier, Spencer Tracy, and Gary Cooper, along with lesser-known ones such as Richard Barthelmess, Lee Tracy, Robert Montgomery, and the magnificent Warren William. Together they represent a vision of manhood more exuberant and contentious--and more humane--than anything that has followed on the American screen.
Looks at the development and changing organization of the star system in the American film industry. Tracing the popularity of star performers from the early "cinema of attractions" to the Internet universe, Paul McDonald explores the ways in which Hollywood has made and sold its stars. Through focusing on particular historical periods, case studies of Mary Pickford, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, and Will Smith illustrate the key conditions influencing the star system in silent cinema, the studio era and the New Hollywood.
This book applies the videocassette to the study of Shakespeare on television and film. The result is that the films become texts, and Shakespeare in performance can be examined with the scholarly care that has been reserved for printed books.
Smit studies the woman behind the public image as a natural, wholesome, even saintly person, an image carefully crafted by Bergman's first producer David O. Selznick. Bergman hid behind that image to live her life on her own terms. That life included three difficult marriages, numerous lovers, and a major scandal that stained her reputation but which she survived by creating her own legend. Bergman was filled with contradictions: she was dependent upon men and chafed under their control; she loved her children but constantly left them to perform; she longed for romance but walked away from her affairs without looking back; she desired to make great films but settled for being an entertainer; she hated the scrutiny of the media but learned to charm reporters. The author also assesses Bergman's artistry--her star qualities and her acting skills. She did her best work in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, Roberto Rossellini's Voyage in Italy, and Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata. Her life and image were the inspiration for these films in the first place.
Taking the subject chronologically from the 1890s to when the book was initially published in 1989, this book analyses those films specifically concerned with working-class conditions and struggle, and discusses them within the context of the debate on the social significance of the feature film. It concentrates on films which depict labour organizations and political activists, as well as life in working-class communities and actors with working-class identities such as James Cagney. Reviews of the original edition: ‘...fills a gap in film studies...the study of social and labour history, and the development of popular culture in Britain and the United States.’