Download or read book Politics Desire and the Hollywood Novel written by Chip Rhodes and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2008-09 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of what happens when a serious writer goes to Hollywood has become a cliché: the writer is paid well but underappreciated, treated like a factory worker, and forced to write bad, formulaic movies. Most fail, become cynical, drink to excess, and at some point write a bitter novel that attacks the film industry in the name of high art. Like many too familiar stories, this one neither holds up to the facts nor helps us understand Hollywood novels. Instead, Chip Rhodes argues, these novels tell us a great deal about the ways that Hollywood has shaped both the American political landscape and American definitions of romance and desire. Rhodes considers how novels about the film industry changed between the studio era of the 1930s and 1940s and the era of deregulated film making that has existed since the 1960s. He asserts that Americans are now driven by cultural, rather than class, differences and that our mainstream notion of love has gone from repressed desire to “abnormal desire” to, finally, strictly business. Politics, Desire, and the Hollywood Novel pays close attention to six authors—Nathanael West, Raymond Chandler, Budd Schulberg, Joan Didion, Bruce Wagner, and Elmore Leonard—who have toiled in the film industry and written to tell about it. More specifically, Rhodes considers both screenplays and novels with an eye toward the different formulations of sexuality, art, and ultimately political action that exist in these two kinds of storytelling.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of Los Angeles written by Kevin R. McNamara and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-05-06 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Los Angeles has a tantalizing hold on the American imagination. Its self-magnifying myths encompass Hollywood glamour, Arcadian landscapes, and endless summer, but also the apocalyptic undertow of riots, environmental depredation, and natural disaster. This Companion traces the evolution of Los Angeles as the most public staging of the American Dream - and American nightmares. The expert contributors make exciting, innovative connections among the authors and texts inspired by the city, covering the early Spanish settlers, African American writers, the British and German expatriates of the 1930s and 1940s, Latino, and Asian LA literature. The genres discussed include crime novels, science fiction, Hollywood novels, literary responses to urban rebellion, the poetry scene, nature writing, and the most influential non-fiction accounts of the region. Diverse, vibrant, and challenging as the city itself, this Companion is the definitive guide to LA in literature.
Download or read book Sexual Politics of Desire and Belonging written by Nick Rumens and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2007 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designed for students, academics and the general reader alike, Sexual Politics of Desire and Belonging provides theoretical and empirical insights into the linkages between sexualities and forms of desire, and ways of belonging and relating to others in specific contexts and moments in time. Opening with a substantial introduction by one of the editors, this collection of thirteen essays is organised into three parts, each section making important contributions to contemporary debates regarding the sexual politics of citizenship, marriage, friendship, pornography, intimacies, eroticism and desire. As such, the essays introduce fresh perspectives for thinking about how individuals construct senses of belonging and modes of relating to others in their everyday lives, within the disciplinary frameworks of sociology, organisational analysis and cultural studies. As well, the volume analyses representations of desire and eroticism in British Pop Art, trauma and feminist fiction, polyamory self-help literature, Hollywood films, and sociological and psychoanalytic theory. Analytical insights offered within these essays will do much to stimulate debate about aspects of the socially and historically constituted relationship between desire and sexuality. Because of the diverse approaches and conclusions it contains, the volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in engaging with inter- and multidisciplinary perspectives in order to understand the dynamics between constructions of desire and belonging, and discourses of gender, sex and sexuality.
Download or read book Faulkner s Hollywood Novels written by Ben Robbins and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2024-08-12 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing the influence of Faulkner’s screenwriting on his literary craft and depictions of women William Faulkner’s time as a Hollywood screenwriter has often been dismissed as little more than an intriguing interlude in the career of one of America’s greatest novelists. Consequently, it has not received the wide-ranging critical examination it deserves. In Faulkner’s Hollywood Novels, Ben Robbins provides an overdue thematic analysis by systematically tracing a dialogue of influence between Faulkner’s literary fiction and screenwriting over a period of two decades. Among numerous insights, Robbins’s work sheds valuable new light on Faulkner’s treatment of female characters, both in his novels and in the films to which he contributed. Drawing on extensive archival research, Robbins finds that Hollywood genre conventions and archetypes significantly influenced and reshaped Faulkner’s craft after his involvement in the studio system. His work in the film industry also produced a deep exploration of the gendered dynamics of collaborative labor, genre formulae, and cultural hierarchies that materialized in both his Hollywood screenplays and his experimental fiction.
Download or read book The Many Facets of Diamonds Are Forever written by Oliver Buckton and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-03-13 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diamonds Are Forever—the fourth James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, published in 1956—is widely recognized as one of the most intriguing and original works in the 007 series. With its exciting settings including West Africa, Las Vegas, and the horse-racing center of Saratoga Springs, the novel explores the thrilling themes of diamond smuggling, gambling, gangsters, sex, and espionage. Moreover, the novel is unique in being set outside the conventional Cold War milieu of other Fleming novels, allowing readers to explore Fleming’s views of America without reference to its Cold War antagonist, the Soviet Union. This collection of essays is the first to explore Fleming’s novel in depth, as well as delve into the remarkable 1971 film adaptation directed by Guy Hamilton (who also directed Goldfinger), and starring Sean Connery in his final “official” appearance as 007. Updating Fleming’s novel for the post-1960s culture of sexual liberation and mass-market consumerism, Hamilton’s film departs from the novel by introducing Ernst Stavro Blofeld—the head of SPECTRE and James Bond’s nemesis—as the arch-villain. The ten original essays in this collection focus on diverse themes such as the central role of Tiffany Case—one of Fleming’s most memorable “Bond girls”—in novel and film; Fleming’s fascination with diamonds, reflected in this novels intertextual connections to the non-fiction book The Diamond Smugglers; the author’s ambivalent relationship with American culture; the literary style of Diamonds Are Forever, including its generic status as a “Hollywood novel”; and the role of homosexuality in the novel and film versions of Diamonds Are Forever. Bringing together established Bond scholars and new emerging critics, this collection offers unique insight into one of the most influential works of modern popular culture, casting new light on the many facets of Diamonds Are Forever.
Download or read book The Last Word written by Justin Gautreau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-02 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Last Word argues that the Hollywood novel opened up space for cultural critique of the film industry at a time when the industry lacked the capacity to critique itself. While the young studio system worked tirelessly to burnish its public image in the wake of celebrity scandal, several industry insiders wrote fiction to fill in what newspapers and fan magazines left out. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, these novels aimed to expose the invisible machinery of classical Hollywood cinema, including not only the evolving artifice of the screen but also the promotional discourse that complemented it. As likeminded filmmakers in the 1940s and 1950s gradually brought the dark side of the industry to the screen, however, the Hollywood novel found itself struggling to live up to its original promise of delivering the unfilmable. By the 1960s, desperate to remain relevant, the genre had devolved into little more than erotic fantasy of movie stars behind closed doors, perhaps the only thing the public couldn't already find elsewhere. Still, given their unique ability to speak beyond the institutional restraints of their time, these earlier works offer a window into the industry's dynamic creation and re-creation of itself in the public imagination.
Download or read book A Companion to the Modern American Novel 1900 1950 written by John T. Matthews and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-03-25 with total page 790 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This cutting-edge Companion is a comprehensive resource for the study of the modern American novel. Published at a time when literary modernism is being thoroughly reassessed, it reflects current investigations into the origins and character of the movement as a whole. Brings together 28 original essays from leading scholars Allows readers to orient individual works and authors in their principal cultural and social contexts Contributes to efforts to recover minority voices, such as those of African American novelists, and popular subgenres, such as detective fiction Directs students to major relevant scholarship for further inquiry Suggests the many ways that “modern”, “American” and “fiction” carry new meanings in the twenty-first century
Download or read book A Companion to the American Novel written by Alfred Bendixen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-11-17 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring 37 essays by distinguished literary scholars, A Companion to the American Novel provides a comprehensive single-volume treatment of the development of the novel in the United States from the late 18th century to the present day. Represents the most comprehensive single-volume introduction to this popular literary form currently available Features 37 contributions from a wide range of distinguished literary scholars Includes essays on topics and genres, historical overviews, and key individual works, including The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, Beloved, and many more.
Download or read book Research Guide to American Literature written by Benjamín Franklin and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents American literature from the beginnings to the Revolutionary War, including essays, narratives and more.
Download or read book Classical Hollywood American Modernism written by Jordan Brower and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-18 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book charts the Hollywood studio system's genesis, international dominance, and self-understood demise by way of its influences on modernist literature in the United States. It shows how the American film industry's business practices and social conditions inflected the form of some of the greatest works of prose fiction and non-fiction.
Download or read book The Twentieth Century American Fiction Handbook written by Christopher MacGowan and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-02-21 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN FICTION Accessibly structured with entries on important historical contexts, central issues, key texts and the major writers, this Handbook provides an engaging overview of twentieth-century American fiction. Featured writers range from Henry James and Theodore Dreiser to contemporary figures such as Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas Pynchon, and Sherman Alexie, and analyses of key works include The Great Gatsby, Lolita, The Color Purple, and The Joy Luck Club, among others. Relevant contexts for these works, such as the impact of Hollywood, the expatriate scene in the 1920s, and the political unrest of the 1960s are also explored, and their importance discussed. This is a stimulating overview of twentieth-century American fiction, offering invaluable guidance and essential information for students and general readers.
Download or read book Hollywood Cinema and the Real Los Angeles written by Mark Shiel and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hollywood cinema and Los Angeles cannot be understood apart. Hollywood Cinema and the Real Los Angeles traces the interaction of the real city, its movie business, and filmed image, focusing on the crucial period from the construction of the first studios in the 1910s to the decline of the studio system fifty years later. As Los Angeles gradually became one of the ten largest cities in the world, the film industry made key contributions to its rapid growth and frequent crises in economic, social, political and cultural life. Whether filmmakers engaged with the real city on location or recreated it on a studio set, Los Angeles shaped the films that were made there and circulated influentially worldwide. The book pays particular attention to early cinema, slapstick comedy, movies about the movies and film noir, which are each explored in new ways, with an emphasis on urban and architectural space and its representation, as well as filmmaking style and technique. Including many previously unpublished photographs and new historical evidence, Hollywood Cinema and the Real Los Angeles gives us a never-before-seen view of the City of Angels.
Download or read book California and the Melancholic American Identity in Joan Didion s Novels written by Katarzyna Nowak McNeice and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: California and the Melancholic American Identity in Joan Didion’s Novels: Exiled from Eden focuses on the concept of Californian identity in the fiction of Joan Didion. This identity is understood as melancholic, in the sense that the critics following the tradition of both Sigmund Freud and Walter Benjamin use the word. The book traces the progress of the way Californian identity is portrayed in Joan Didion’s novels, starting with the first two in which California plays the central role, Run River and Play It As It Lays, through A Book of Common Prayer to Democracy and The Last Thing He Wanted, where California functions only as a distant point of reference, receding to the background of Didion’s interests. Curiously enough, Didion presents Californian history as a history of white settlement, disregarding whole chapters of the history of the region in which the Californios and Native Americans, among other groups, played a crucial role: it is this reticence that the monograph sees as the main problem of Didion’s fiction and presents it as the silent center of gravity in Didion’s oeuvre. The monograph proposes to see the melancholy expressed by Didion’s fiction organized into four losses: of Nature, History, Ethics, and Language; around which the main analytical chapters are constructed. What remains unrepresented and silenced comes back to haunt Didion’s fiction, and it results in a melancholic portrayal of California and its identity – which is the central theme this monograph addresses.
Download or read book Site Reading written by David J. Alworth and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-20 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Site Reading offers a new method of literary and cultural interpretation and a new theory of narrative setting by examining five sites—supermarkets, dumps, roads, ruins, and asylums—that have been crucial to American literature and visual art since the mid-twentieth century. Against the traditional understanding of setting as a static background for narrative action and character development, David Alworth argues that sites figure in novels as social agents. Engaging a wide range of social and cultural theorists, especially Bruno Latour and Erving Goffman, Site Reading examines how the literary figuration of real, material environments reorients our sense of social relations. To read the sites of fiction, Alworth demonstrates, is to reveal literature as a profound sociological resource, one that simultaneously models and theorizes collective life. Each chapter identifies a particular site as a point of contact for writers and artists—the supermarket for Don DeLillo and Andy Warhol; the dump for William Burroughs and Mierle Laderman Ukeles; the road for Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion, and John Chamberlain; the ruin for Thomas Pynchon and Robert Smithson; and the asylum for Ralph Ellison, Gordon Parks, and Jeff Wall—and shows how this site mediates complex interactions among humans and nonhumans. The result is an interdisciplinary study of American culture that brings together literature, visual art, and social theory to develop a new sociology of literature that emphasizes the sociology in literature.
Download or read book A Companion to Crime Fiction written by Charles J. Rzepka and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-07-13 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to Crime Fiction presents the definitive guide to this popular genre from its origins in the eighteenth century to the present day A collection of forty-seven newly commissioned essays from a team of leading scholars across the globe make this Companion the definitive guide to crime fiction Follows the development of the genre from its origins in the eighteenth century through to its phenomenal present day popularity Features full-length critical essays on the most significant authors and film-makers, from Arthur Conan Doyle and Dashiell Hammett to Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese exploring the ways in which they have shaped and influenced the field Includes extensive references to the most up-to-date scholarship, and a comprehensive bibliography
Download or read book Being Cool written by Charles J. Rzepka and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rzepka draws on more than twelve hours of personal interviews with Leonard and applies what he learned to his close analysis of the writer's long life and prodigious output: 45 published novels, 39 published and unpublished short stories, and numerous essays written over the course of six decades.--David Geherin, Eastern Michigan University "International Crime Fiction Association"
Download or read book Cinematic Fictions written by David Seed and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The phrase 'cinematic fiction' has now been generally accepted into critical discourse, but is usually applied to post-war novels. This book asks a simple question: given their fascination with the new medium of film, did American novelists attempt to apply cinematic methods in their own writings? From its very beginnings the cinema has played a special role in defining American culture. Covering the period from the 1910s up to the Second World War, Cinematic Fictions offers new insights into classics like The Great Gatsby and The Grapes of Wrath discussing major writers' critical writings on film and active participation in film-making. Cinematic Fictions is also careful not to portray 'cinema' as a single or stable entity. Some novelists drew on silent film; others looked to the Russian theorists for inspiration; and yet others turned to continental film-makers rather than to Hollywood. Film itself was constantly evolving during the first decades of the twentieth century and the writers discussed here engaged in a kind of dialogue with the new medium, selectively pursuing strategies of montage, limited point of view and scenic composition towards their different ends. Contrasting a diverse range of cinematic and literary movements, this will be compulsory reading for scholars of American literature and film.
