Hollywood's hero deficit

An academic article on Hollywood's current inibility to present Americans as heroes. Fascinating stuff.
http://www.american.com/archive/2008/july-august-magazine-contents/hollywood2019s-hero-deficit

Hollywood's strong women - the representation of femininity in the early 1940s

Stars and women and film in the early to mid 1940s.

These were among the greatest roles by Hollywood's most powerful actresses of the 1940s:

"Now, Voyager"- Bette Davis in 1942 (See the image above)

"Double Indemnity" - Barbara Stanwyck 1944

"Mildred Pierce" - Joan Crawford 1945

These great actresses characterised a male view of women in the early to mid 1940s.

What was Hollywood openly and covertly stating in its representation of these female roles in this era?

In a comparative manner how are men represented in these films?

How did the context of the war affect the representation of femininity and masculinity in these films?

These are just a few starter questions for what could be a study on the representation of strong women played by actresses at their peak across these great films. Depending on how it is focussed this study could either fit the genre, stars/performers category or the social, historical and political category of FS4.

This is it for FS4 and for other areas of film this summer as I'm away for a few weeks in Turkey and Scotland. There may be the odd post or two over the next few weeks - if I get bored!

Film Reference - an encyclopedia of stars, directors, national cinema, etc.

This is a very useful starting point for studies on a director, star, national cinema, fandom, etc.

http://www.filmreference.com/index.html

Cahiers du Cinéma and the French New Wave (essay)

Dave Kehr's commemorative essay from 2001 on the 50th anniversary of the magazine, Cahiers du Cinéma, explains how the French New Wave Cinema ( La Nouvelle Vague ) emerged from the young men who wrote for Cahiers du Cinéma: François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and Jean-Luc Godard, etc. These "young turks" attempted to sift what they considered to be the wheat from the chaff as they re-appraised Hollywood and its directors such as Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock whom they considered to be "auteurs". Kehr's essay reveals how Truffaut et. al. preferred some directors others because the directors appeared a-political. For instance, Wyler, Huston and Wilder fell out of favour because they were seen as "left-leaning". These last mentioned directors were championed by the French leftist cinema magazine, "Positif". Although "Cahiers . . ." itself later turned left in the late 60s and early 70s when its articles were written by theorists who focussed on post modernist philosophy and ideology. Kehr's discussion of "the young turks" ideas about mise- en-scene is worth reading just on its own. All in all, this is a must-read for students who are studying French New Wave Cinema and who need a contextual understanding of how this movement began and how it went on to shape modern film criticism.

http://filmlinc.com/fcm/9-10-2001/cahiers.htm

Interviews with european film directors with rare film clips

http://zakka.dk/euroscreenwriters/interviews/index.htm

Interviews with film directors - over the last few decades

The image is of Robert Altman, receiving an oscar.

There's an interesting mix here of film directors ranging from Hitchcock to Speilberg. A great resource for auteur studies and for anyone who wants to know more about the hows and whys well-known film directors crafted their films.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/professions/film_directors.shtml

Charlton Heston - FS4 Star Study Resource

http://brightlightsfilm.blogspot.com/2008/04/epic-actor-charlton-heston-1924-2008.html

I am aware of one student focusing on Charlton Heston for his small scale research project. It would be worth considering the various elements of Heston's performance in epics and why he seemed to be the star of choice for such films. Epic films were very popular between 1956-66 and Heston was invariably in many of them. What did he bring to epic films that other stars could not? Why did directors cast him and what did audiences expect from him in these films? What was the nature of his "screen presence"? Which performance from his films defined him as an actor for epics? Heston's link with the epic did not end on screen - he was also the president of the actors' union between 1966-71 and also of the pro-gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, in the US. The link at the top of this post is a good one for posing the above question and there is a brief summary of several of Heston's films.

For more on Charlton Heston as an epic actor see:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1729693,00.html