Film and Media Studies

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  My Life as a Mankiewicz: An Insider's Journey through Hollywood

  This book details writer-director Tom Mankiewicz's fascinating journey through the ups and downs of being a member of an iconic Hollywood family, the pressures of following in the footsteps of his Oscar-winning writer-director father, Joe Mankiewicz and his Oscar-winning writer uncle Herman Mankiewicz, and the expectations of a family and the film community. Mankiewicz carves out his own niche by writing scripts that his dad and uncle never would have worked on because the subject material didn't lie in their comfort zones. Mankiewicz became a script doctor first, rewriting Legal Eagles, War Games, and Superman among others. Then he turned ...Read More

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  Thomas Ince: Hollywood's Independent Pioneer

  Thomas H. Ince (1880–1924) turned movie-making into a business enterprise. Progressing from actor to director and screenwriter, he revolutionized the motion picture industry through developing the role of the producer. In addition to building the first major Hollywood studio facility, dubbed “Inceville,” he was responsible for more than 800 films. This book chronicles Ince's life from the stage to his sudden death as he was about to join forces with media tycoon William Randolph Hearst. It explores Ince's impact on Hollywood's production system, the Western, his creation of the first American movies starring Asian performers, and his cinematic exploration of ...Read More

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  Carl Theodor Dreyer and Ordet: My Summer with the Danish Filmmaker

  Regarded by many filmmakers and critics as one of the greatest directors in cinema history, Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889-1968) achieved worldwide acclaim after the debut of his masterpiece, The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). Named the most influential film of all time at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, the classic film and its legendary director still exert strong influence even today. In 1955, Jan Wahl, an American student, had the extraordinary opportunity at the age of twenty to spend a unique and unforgettable summer with Dreyer as the director filmed Ordet or The Word (1955). Carl Theodor Dreyer ...Read More

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  3-D Revolution: The History of Modern Stereoscopic Cinema

  3-D Revolution: The History of Modern Stereoscopic Cinema traces the rise of modern 3-D technology from Arch Oboler’s Bwana Devil, the 1952 film that launched the 1950s 3-D boom in Hollywood, to James Cameron’s Avatar, the 2009 release that confirmed 3D film as an enduring part of theatrical entertainment. A comprehensive approach examines the technology for production and exhibition of 3D films and investigates the business, culture, and aesthetics of the genre.

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  Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood's Legendary Director

  Raoul Walsh (1887–1980) was known as one of Hollywood's most adventurous, iconoclastic, and creative directors. He carved out an illustrious career and made films that transformed the Hollywood studio yarn into a thrilling art form. This book recounts Walsh's life and achievements in a career that spanned more than half a century and produced upwards of 200 films, many of them cinema classics. Walsh originally entered the movie business as an actor, playing the role of John Wilkes Booth in D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915). In the same year, under Griffith's tutelage, Walsh began to direct ...Read More

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  Von Sternberg

  Belligerent and evasive, Josef von Sternberg chose to ignore his illegitimate birth in Austria, deprived New York childhood, abusive father, and lack of education. The director who strutted onto the set in a turban, riding breeches, or a silk robe embraced his new persona as a world traveller, collected modern art, drove a Rolls Royce, and earned three times as much as the president. This book traces the choices that carried the unique director from poverty in Vienna to power in Hollywood, including his eventual ostracism in Japan. It reveals an artist few people knew: the aesthete who transformed Marlene ...Read More

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  Letterboxed: The Evolution of Widescreen Cinema

  When widescreen technology was introduced to filmmaking in 1953, it changed the visual framework and aesthetic qualities of cinema forever. Before widescreen, a director's vision for capturing beautiful landscapes or city skylines was limited by what could be included in the boxy confines of an Academy Ratio film frame. The introduction and subsequent evolution of widescreen technology has allowed directors to push the boundaries of filmmaking. This book explores the technological changes of the widescreen technique and how the format has inspired directors and also sparked debates among film critics. Examining early filmmakers such as Buster Keaton and D. W. ...Read More

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  Buzz: The Life and Art of Busby Berkeley

  Busby Berkeley was the premier dance director of motion pictures. His originality and sharply defined style brought him professional acclaim and financial reward. He saved a studio from bankruptcy and a doomed genre from senescence. He wasn't a choreographer. According to “Buzz”, choreographers were defined with artists such as Agnes de Mille. He defined “dance directing”. Busby Berkeley was a specialist in the best and limiting sense of the word. For musical pictures, he had no stylistic equal, yet he films he directed outside his purview were often middling and anonymous, lacking the imprimatur that defined his finest work. The ...Read More

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  Animating Space: From Mickey to WALL-E

  Animators work within a strictly defined, limited space that requires difficult artistic decisions. The blank frame presents a dilemma for all animators, and the decision as to what to include and leave out raises important questions about artistry, authorship, and cultural influence. This book explores how animation has confronted the blank template, and how responses to that confrontation have changed. Focusing on American animation, the book tracks the development of animation in line with changing cultural attitudes toward space and examines innovations that elevated the medium from a novelty to a fully realized art form. From Winsor McCay and the ...Read More

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  Hollywood's War with Poland, 1939-1945

  During World War II, Hollywood studios supported the war effort by making patriotic movies designed to raise the nation's morale. These movies often portrayed the combatants in very simple terms: Americans and their allies were heroes, and everyone else was a villain. Norway, France, Czechoslovakia, and England were all good because they had been invaded or victimized by Nazi Germany. Poland, however, was represented in a negative light in numerous movies. This book draws on a close study of prewar and wartime films such as To Be or Not to Be (1942), In Our Time (1944), and None Shall Escape ...Read More