Description
Book SynopsisIn A Modernist Cinema, sixteen distinguished scholars in the field of the New Modernist Studies explore the interrelationships among modernism, cinema, and modernity. Focusing on several culturally influential films from Europe, America, and Asia produced between 1914 and 1941, this collection of essays contends that cinema was always a modernist enterprise. Examining the dialectical relationship between a modernist cinema and modernity itself, these essays reveal how the movies represented and altered our notions and practices of modern life, as well as how the so-called crises of modernity shaped the evolution of filmmaking. Attending to the technical achievements and formal qualities of the works of several prominent directors - Giovanni Pastrone, D. W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein, Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, F. W. Murnau, Carl Theodore Dreyer, Dziga Vertov, Luis Buñuel, Yasujiro Ozu, John Ford, Jean Renoir, Charlie Chaplin, Leni Riefenstahl, and Orson Welles - these essays invest
Trade ReviewThe volume does not descend into a vague "modernists go to the movies" survey. Rather, despite the canonicity of the films, each essay provides strong case studies. Though all the essays have a similar implicit thesis--something like "this film, which does not seem to be modernist, actually speaks to modernism"--the variety of topics covered is the book's strong suit. * K. M. Flanagan, George Mason University, CHOICE *
The table of contents of this book reads like a veritable Who's Who of cinematic modernism, including such directors as Griffith, Eisenstein, Lang, Hitchcock, Murnau, Dreyer, Bunuel, Ford, Renoir, Chaplin, Riefenstahl, and Welles. Add to that the fact that every chapter offers a provocative and original take on a single masterpiece by each of these directors, and you have a truly remarkable volume. And to top it all off, the essays are written in accessible, jargon-free prose and explore their subjects with a deep awareness of historical and theoretical contexts. * Paul A. Cantor, author of
Pop Culture and the Dark Side of the American Dream: Con Men, Gangsters, Drug Lords, and Zombies *
Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: Giovanni Pastrone's Cabiria, Gesture, Modernism, by Enda Duffy and Maurizia Boscagli Chapter 2: D. W. Griffith's Intolerance and the Ever-Present Now, by Michael North Chapter 3: Sergei Eisenstein's Collage: Filming Montage in Museums at Night, by Lisa Siraganian Chapter 4: From Automaton to Autonomy: Mechanical Reproduction in Fritz Lang's Metropolis, by Richard Begam Chapter 5: "Suspense is Like a Woman": Sex and Style in Alfred Hitchcock's Pleasure Garden and The Lodger, by Laura Frost Chapter 6: F. W. Murnau's Sunrise: Between Two Worlds, by Laura Marcus Chapter 7: "A Language Worth the Trouble of Learning"? Carl Theodore Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, by Andrzej Gasiorek Chapter 8: Intervals of Transition: Dziga Vertov's The Man With a Movie Camera, by Tyrus Miller Chapter 9: Luis Buñuel, Surrealism and the Politics of Disorder, by Michael Wood Chapter 10: Yasujir's Ozu's A Story of Floating Weeds and the Art of Being Behind, by Carrie J. Preston Chapter 11: "Saved from the Blessings of Civilization": John Ford's Stagecoach, the West, and American Vernacular Modernism, by Michael Valdez Moses Chapter 12: "Tout le monde a ses raisons" The Problem of Impressionist Commitment in Jean Renoir's La Règle du jeu, by Jesse Matz Chapter 13: "You Must Speak": Silence, Scale, and Power in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, by Scott W. Klein Chapter 14: Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi Neoclassicism: Olympia, by Elizabeth Otto Chapter 15: On Auratic and Sentimental Objects: High and Low Modernism in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, by Douglas Mao Index
