Download or read book Forties Screen Style written by Howard Mandelbaum and published by St Martins Press. This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the decorative style of the movie sets of the 1940s, showing how it evolved from the Art Deco of the 1930s into a mixture of modernism and exoticism

Download or read book MGM Style written by Howard Gutner and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: MGM Style is an overview of the career and achievements of Hollywood’s most famous art director. Cedric Gibbons was the supervisor in charge of the art department at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studios from its inception in 1924 until Gibbons chose to retire in 1956. Lavishly illustrated with over 175 pristine duotone photographs, the vast majority of which have never before been published, this is the first volume to trace Gibbons’ trendsetting career. At its height in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Gibbons was regularly acknowledged by his peers as having shaped the craft of art direction in American film; his work was recognized as representing the finest in motion picture sets and settings. Gibbons and his associates constructed the villages, towns, streets, squares and edifices that later appeared in hundreds of films, and whose mixed architecture stood in for army camps and the wild west, Dutch New York and Dickensian London, ancient China and modern Japan. Inspired by the work of Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus masters, as well as the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris and Frank Lloyd Wright’s experiments with open planning, Gibbons championed the notion that movie decor should move beyond the commercial framework of the popular cinema

Download or read book Clothing and Fashion 4 volumes written by José Blanco F. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-11-23 with total page 1679 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique four-volume encyclopedia examines the historical significance of fashion trends, revealing the social and cultural connections of clothing from the precolonial times to the present day. This sweeping overview of fashion and apparel covers several centuries of American history as seen through the lens of the clothes we wear—from the Native American moccasin to Manolo Blahnik's contribution to stiletto heels. Through four detailed volumes, this work delves into what people wore in various periods in our country's past and why—from hand-crafted family garments in the 1600s, to the rough clothing of slaves, to the sophisticated textile designs of the 21st century. More than 100 fashion experts and clothing historians pay tribute to the most notable garments, accessories, and people comprising design and fashion. The four volumes contain more than 800 alphabetical entries, with each volume representing a different era. Content includes fascinating information such as that beginning in 1619 through 1654, every man in Virginia was required to plant a number of mulberry trees to support the silk industry in England; what is known about the clothing of enslaved African Americans; and that there were regulations placed on clothing design during World War II. The set also includes color inserts that better communicate the visual impact of clothing and fashion across eras.

Download or read book Old House Interiors written by and published by . This book was released on 2003-06 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National architectural magazine now in its fifteenth year, covering period-inspired design 1700–1950. Commissioned photographs show real homes, inspired by the past but livable. Historical and interpretive rooms are included; new construction, additions, and new kitchens and baths take their place along with restoration work. A feature on furniture appears in every issue. Product coverage is extensive. Experts offer advice for homeowners and designers on finishing, decorating, and furnishing period homes of every era. A garden feature, essays, archival material, events and exhibitions, and book reviews round out the editorial. Many readers claim the beautiful advertising—all of it design-related, no “lifestyle” ads—is as important to them as the articles.

Download or read book Art Directors in Cinema written by Michael L. Stephens and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-09-02 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often forgotten among the actors, directors, producers and others associated with filmmaking, art directors are responsible for making movies visually appealing to audiences. As such they sometimes make the difference between a hit and a bomb. This biographical dictionary includes not only the world’s great and almost-great artists, but the unjustly neglected film designers of the past and present. Among the more than 300 art directors and designers are pioneers from silent films, designers from Hollywood and Europe’s Golden Ages, Asian figures, post–Golden Age personalities, leaders of the European and American New Waves, and many contemporary designers. Each entry consists of biographical information, an analysis of the director’s career and important films, and an extensive filmography including mentions of Academy Award nominations and winners.

Download or read book Art Direction and Production Design written by Lucy Fischer and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-06 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How is the look of a film achieved? In Art Direction and Production Design, six outstanding scholars survey the careers of notable art directors, the influence of specific design styles, the key roles played by particular studios and films in shaping the field, the effect of technological changes on production design, and the shifts in industrial modes of organization. The craft’s purpose is to produce an overall pictorial “vision” for films, and in 1924 a group of designers formed the Cinemagundi Club—their skills encompassed set design, painting, decoration, construction, and budgeting. A few years later, in recognition of their contributions to filmmaking, the first Academy Awards for art direction were given, a clear indication of just how essential the oversight of production design had become to the so-called majors. The original essays presented in Art Direction and Production Design trace the trajectory from Thomas Edison’s primitive studio, the Black Maria, to the growth of the Hollywood “studio system,” to the influence of sound, to a discussion of the “auteur theory,” and to contemporary Hollywood in which computer-generated imagery has become common. By 2000, the Society of Motion Picture Art Directors became the Art Directors Guild, emphasizing the significance of the contributions of art direction and production design to filmmaking. Art Direction and Production Design is a volume in the Behind the Silver Screen series—other titles in the series include Acting, Animation, Cinematography, Directing, Editing and Special/Visual Effects, Producers, Screenwriting, and Sound.

Download or read book Clothes Make the Character written by Lora Ann Sigler and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-02-01 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Clothes make the man" (or woman). This is especially true in early Hollywood silent films where a character's appearance could show an immense number of different things about them. For example, Theda Bara's role in A Fool There Was (1915) was known for her revealing clothing, seductive appearance, and being the first "Vamp." Wardrobe and costume design played a larger role in silent films than in modern movies. The character's clothes told the audience who they were and what their role was in the movie. In this in-depth analysis, the author provides examples and explanations about noteworthy characters who used their appearance to further their fame.

Download or read book The Sewing Circle written by Axel Madsen and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Barbara Stanwyck—to name a few—maintained their images as glamorous big-screen sex symbols complete with dashing escorts, handsome husbands, and scores of male admirers, thanks to studio publicity departments. But off the set, all three box office divas were involved in “lavender” marriages (marriages of convenience, often to gay men) or remained stoically single. They, and several other Hollywood starlets of the era, were members of a discreet women’s “club” called the Sewing Circle, Hollywood’s underground lesbian society. Madsen takes a candid look at the very complicated dual lives these great stars led and the impact their preference for same-sex relationships had on their movie careers.

Download or read book Mrs Ziegfeld written by Grant Hayter-Menzies and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2009-04-22 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Broadway actress Billie Burke was one of the most sought after young stage beauties of her time, stealing the hearts of Enrico Caruso, Mark Twain, and, most importantly, famed Broadway producer Florenz Ziegfeld, who became her husband. Following Ziegfeld's death, the threats of financial ruin and encroaching age forced Burke to recreate herself as a Hollywood character actress. This biography benefits from the cooperation of the daughter and grandchildren of Burke and Ziegfeld, as well as from anecdotes provided by actors who performed with Burke on the stage and screen. In addition to studying the character and significance of Burke's greatest screen role as Glinda the Good Witch of the North, this richly illustrated book also provides a complete history of Burke's stage, screen, and radio work.

Download or read book It Looks At You written by Wheeler W. Dixon and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a study of the "returned gaze" from the cinema screen, demonstrating that the films that we watch watch us, guide us, control our gaze, and enforce societal codes.

Download or read book Patricia Neal written by Stephen Michael Shearer and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 765 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major Motion Picture Adaptation Coming Soon The internationally acclaimed actress Patricia Neal (1926–2010) was a star on stage, film, and television for more than sixty years. On Broadway she appeared in such lauded productions as Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest, winning the first Tony award. In Hollywood she starred opposite the likes of John Wayne, Paul Newman, John Garfield, and Gary Cooper in some thirty films. She is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Alma Brown in Hud, which earned her the 1963 Academy Award for Best Actress. But there was much more to Neal's life. She was born in Packard, Kentucky, though she spent most of her childhood in Knoxville, Tennessee. For a time, Neal became romantically involved with Gary Cooper, her married costar in The Fountainhead. In 1953, Neal wed famed children's author Roald Dahl, a match that would bring her five children and thirty years of dramatic ups and downs. At the pinnacle of her screen career, Neal suffered a series of strokes which left her in a coma for twenty-one days, and Variety even ran a headline erroneously stating that she had died. After a difficult recovery, Neal returned to film acting, earning a second Academy Award nomination for The Subject Was Roses (1968). She appeared in several television movie roles in the 1970s and 1980s and won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Dramatic TV Movie in 1971 for The Homecoming. Adapted as a major motion picture (filmed as An Unquiet Life) starring Hugh Bonneville, Keeley Hawes, and Sam Heughan, Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life is the first critical biography detailing the actress's impressive film career and remarkable personal life. Author Stephen Michael Shearer conducted numerous interviews with Neal, her professional colleagues, and her intimate friends and was given access to the actress's personal papers. The result is an honest and comprehensive portrait of an accomplished woman who lived her life with determination and bravado.

Download or read book What Dreams Were Made of written by Sean Griffin and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humphrey Bogart. Abbott and Costello. Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. John Wayne. Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable. Images of these film icons conjure up a unique moment in cinema and history, one of optimism and concern, patriotism and cynicism. What Dreams Were Made Of examines the performers who helped define American cinema in the 1940s, a decade of rapid and repeated upheaval for Hollywood and the United States. Through insightful discussions of key films as well as studio publicity and fan magazines, the essays in this collection analyze how these actors and actresses helped lift spirits during World War II, whether in service comedies, combat films, or escapist musicals. The contributors, all major writers on the stars and movies of this period, also explore how cultural shifts after the war forced many stars to adjust to new outlooks and attitudes, particularly in film noir. Together, they represented the hopes and fears of a nation during turbulent times, enacting on the silver screen the dreams of millions of moviegoers.

Download or read book The Fountainheads written by Donald Leslie Johnson and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Speculation abounds about the relationship between Frank Lloyd Wright and Ayn Rand. Was Wright the inspiration for Howard Roark, the architect hero of Rand's The Fountainhead? What can be made of their collaboration on the book's failed 1944 movie adaptation, and what can be gleaned from the 1949 Hollywood production of The Fountainhead? Where does the FBI--Wright was dubbed a communist sympathizer, and Rand was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee--fit into the story? Art, architecture, philosophy, film and politics come together in this exploration, which relies on the writings of Wright and Rand, FBI files, visual evidence and more to cement their connection. Chapters are devoted to Wright and Rand, the two together, their parts in both the failed production of The Fountainhead and the successful one, and the effect FBI harassment had on the movie and on their lives. Subsequent chapters discuss Wright's place as a Hollywood architect, and offer telling set designs and architectural images from the 1949 production of The Fountainhead. Several appendices supplement the illustrated text, and there is a filmography of movies mentioned in the book. A bibliography and index are also included.

Download or read book Action written by Gary Morris and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2009-02-01 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Action! draws on the very best published and unpublished interviews of the Bright Lights Film Journal, and contains many gems, including the last ever interview given by Francois Truffaut, four months before he died. The book also benefits from many rare photographs of these great directors on set, and scenes from their groundbreaking works.

Download or read book Maynard L Parker written by Jennifer A. Watts and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2012-12-04 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Overzicht van het werk van de Amerikaanse architectuurfotograaf (1900-1976).

Download or read book Celluloid Saviours written by Emily Caston and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-22 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Celluloid Saviours, the author analyses a corpus of US films dating from the silent era that she calls film blanc. In these fantasy films a guardian spirit with extraordinary powers suspends the ordinary, known laws of time and space, and a main character reforms himself or herself in life-changing ways. The author argues that the historical pattern of film blanc relates to the rise and fall of liberal and reform thought in US politics, specifically to conceptions of human nature as a tabula rasa. This conception is evident both in the early feature films featuring angels such as Chaplin’s The Kid and much later examples such as the 1980s box office hit, Trading Places. She argues that this narrative tradition runs from Hollywood’s beginnings to the present day and is foreshadowed in the English ghost stories of Charles Dickens. The classic era of film blanc is epitomised in the enduringly popular film, It’s a Wonderful Life. More recent examples of narrative form analysed by Caston include The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Download or read book World War II and the Postwar Years in America 2 volumes written by William H. Young and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-09-17 with total page 942 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than 150 articles provide a revealing look at one of the most tempestuous decades in recent American history, describing the everyday activities of Americans as they dealt first with war, and then a difficult transition to peace and prosperity. The two-volume World War II and the Postwar Years in America: A Historical and Cultural Encyclopedia contains over 175 articles describing everyday life on the American home front during World War II and the immediate postwar years. Unlike publications about this period that focus mainly on the big picture of the war and subsequent economic conditions, this encyclopedia drills down to the popular culture of the 1940s, bringing the details of the lives of ordinary men, women, and children alive. The work covers a broad range of everyday activities throughout the 1940s, including movies, radio programming, music, the birth of commercial television, advertising, art, bestsellers, and other equally intriguing topics. The decade was divided almost evenly between war (1940-1945) and peace (1946-1950), and the articles point up the continuities and differences between these two periods. Filled with evocative photographs, this unique encyclopedia will serve as an excellent resource for those seeking an overview of life in the United States during a decade that helped shape the modern world.