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Author: Karen L. Maness
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1942872259
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
The definitive behind-the-scenes history of one of Hollywood’s most closely guarded cinematic secrets finally revealed—painted backdrops and the scenic artists who brought them to the big screen. In almost every feature film of Hollywood’s golden age, from The Wizard of Oz to North by Northwest to Cleopatra to The Sound of Music, painted backings have convinced moviegoers that what they are seeing—whether the fantastic roads of Oz, the presidents of Mount Rushmore, or ancient Egyptian kingdoms—is absolutely real. These backings are at once intended to transport the audience and yet remain unseen for what they really are. The Art of the Hollywood Backdrop reveals the hidden world and creators of these masterpieces, long-guarded as a special effects secret by the major studios such as MGM, Warner Brothers, Universal, Columbia, 20th Century Fox, and Paramount. Despite the continued use of hand-painted backings in today’s films, including the big-budget Interstellar and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events among many others, digital technology is beginning to supplant the art form. In an effort to preserve the irreplaceable knowledge of scenic masters, Karen Maness and Richard Isackes, in collaboration with the Art Directors Guild, have compiled a definitive history of the craft, complete with interviews of the surviving artists. This is a rich undiscovered history—a history replete with competing art departments, dynastic scenic families, and origins stretching back to the films of Méliès, Edison, Sennett, Chaplin, and Fairbanks.
Author: Karen L. Maness
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1942872259
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Get Book Here
Book Description
The definitive behind-the-scenes history of one of Hollywood’s most closely guarded cinematic secrets finally revealed—painted backdrops and the scenic artists who brought them to the big screen. In almost every feature film of Hollywood’s golden age, from The Wizard of Oz to North by Northwest to Cleopatra to The Sound of Music, painted backings have convinced moviegoers that what they are seeing—whether the fantastic roads of Oz, the presidents of Mount Rushmore, or ancient Egyptian kingdoms—is absolutely real. These backings are at once intended to transport the audience and yet remain unseen for what they really are. The Art of the Hollywood Backdrop reveals the hidden world and creators of these masterpieces, long-guarded as a special effects secret by the major studios such as MGM, Warner Brothers, Universal, Columbia, 20th Century Fox, and Paramount. Despite the continued use of hand-painted backings in today’s films, including the big-budget Interstellar and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events among many others, digital technology is beginning to supplant the art form. In an effort to preserve the irreplaceable knowledge of scenic masters, Karen Maness and Richard Isackes, in collaboration with the Art Directors Guild, have compiled a definitive history of the craft, complete with interviews of the surviving artists. This is a rich undiscovered history—a history replete with competing art departments, dynastic scenic families, and origins stretching back to the films of Méliès, Edison, Sennett, Chaplin, and Fairbanks.
Author: Howard Gutner
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493038583
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
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
Author: Anthony Slide
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1617034754
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 279
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Book Description
Extras, bit players, and stand-ins have been a part of the film industry almost from its conception. On a personal and a professional level, their stories are told in Hollywood Unknowns, the first history devoted to extras from the silent era through the present. Hollywood Unknowns discusses the relationship of the extra to the star, the lowly position in which extras were held, the poor working conditions and wages, and the sexual exploitation of many of the hardworking women striving for a place in Hollywood society. Though mainly anonymous, many are identified by name and, for perhaps the first time, receive equal billing with the stars. And Hollywood Unknowns does not forget the bit players, stand-ins, and doubles, who work alongside the extras facing many of the same privations. Celebrity extras, silent stars who ended their days as extras, or members of various ethnic groups—all gain a deserved luster in acclaimed film writer Anthony Slide's prose. Chapters document the lives and work of extras from the 1890s to the present. Slide also treats such subjects as the Hollywood Studio Club, Central Casting, the extras in popular literature, and the efforts at unionization through the Screen Actors Guild from the 1930s onwards. Slide chronicles events such as John Barrymore's walking off set in the middle of the day so the extras could earn another day's wages, and Cecil B. DeMille's masterful organizing of casts of thousands in films such as Cleopatra. Through personal interviews, oral histories, and the use of newly available archival material, Slide reveals in Hollywood Unknowns the story of the men, women, and even animals that completed the scenes on the silver screen.
Author: Peter C. Rollins
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813171806
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 388
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Book Description
American historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner have argued that the West has been the region that most clearly defines American democracy and the national ethos. Throughout the twentieth century, the "frontier thesis" influenced film and television producers who used the West as a backdrop for an array of dramatic explorations of America's history and the evolution of its culture and values. The common themes found in Westerns distinguish the genre as a quintessentially American form of dramatic art. In Hollywood's West, Peter C. Rollins, John E. O'Connor, and the nation's leading film scholars analyze popular conceptions of the frontier as a fundamental element of American history and culture. This volume examines classic Western films and programs that span nearly a century, from Cimarron (1931) to Turner Network Television's recent made-for-TV movies. Many of the films discussed here are considered among the greatest cinematic landmarks of all time. The essays highlight the ways in which Westerns have both shaped and reflected the dominant social and political concerns of their respective eras. While Cimarron challenged audiences with an innovative, complex narrative, other Westerns of the early sound era such as The Great Meadow (1931) frequently presented nostalgic visions of a simpler frontier era as a temporary diversion from the hardships of the Great Depression. Westerns of the 1950s reveal the profound uncertainty cast by the cold war, whereas later Westerns display heightened violence and cynicism, products of a society marred by wars, assassinations, riots, and political scandals. The volume concludes with a comprehensive filmography and an informative bibliography of scholarly writings on the Western genre. This collection will prove useful to film scholars, historians, and both devoted and casual fans of the Western genre. Hollywood's West makes a significant contribution to the understanding of both the historic American frontier and its innumerable popular representations.
Author: Ken Browar
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal
ISBN: 0316435155
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 410
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Book Description
A stunning celebration of movement and dance in hundreds of breathtaking photographs by the creative team behind NYC Dance Project. The Art of Movement is an exquisite collection of photographs by well-known dance photographers Ken Browar and Deborah Ory that capture the movement, flow, energy, and grace of many of the most accomplished dancers in the world. Featured are more than 70 dancers from companies including American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Martha Graham Dance Company, Boston Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Abraham in Motion, and many more. Accompanying the photographs are intimate and inspiring words from the dancers, as well as from choreographers and artistic directors on what dance means to them.
Author:
Publisher: Rizzoli Publications
ISBN: 0847868168
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
This book celebrates two new performance pieces and a recent body of paintings by the artist, drawing on desert landscapes, Road Runner cartoons, and Hollywood Westerns. Bursting with full-color plates and performance stills suffused in a rich desert palette, this volume was published on the occasion of an exhibition of new paintings by Dan Colen and the accompanying premiere of two performance pieces created in collaboration with choreographer Dimitri Chamblas. Colen's Desert Paintings (2015-19) are lush yet schematic interpretations of stills from Chuck Jones's animated shorts featuring Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. These unpopulated depictions of the cartoons' arid settings recall hard-edge abstraction, biomorphic landscapes by Georgia O'Keeffe, and popular art forms such as stage sets, billboards, and the Hollywood Western. The American cowboys who might inhabit these scenes were brought to life in two performances Colen presented with the Desert Paintings as a backdrop. In At Least They Died Together and Carry On Cowboy, figures in full Western regalia repeatedly performed a stylized, convulsive death on a mound of dirt in the gallery. In an insightful essay, Douglas Fogle explores the works' rich interplay of allusions, ultimately placing them in the context of the modern human condition.
Author: Imogen Robertson
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466872314
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
“[With] murderous plots, shady Parisian undersides, upper-class dealings. . . . this novel is rich in historical detail and robust with personality.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review Maud Heighton came to Lafond’s famous Academie to paint, and to flee the constraints of her small English town. It took all her courage to escape, but Paris, she quickly realizes, is no place for a light purse. While her fellow students enjoy the dazzling decadence of the Belle Epoque, Maud slips into poverty. Quietly starving, and dreading another cold Paris winter, she stumbles upon an opportunity when Christian Morel engages her as a live-in companion to his beautiful young sister, Sylvie. Maud is overjoyed by her good fortune. With a clean room, hot meals, and an umbrella to keep her dry, she is able to hold her head high as she strolls the streets of Montmartre. No longer hostage to poverty and hunger, Maud can at last devote herself to her art. But all is not as it seems. Christian and Sylvie, Maud soon discovers, are not quite the darlings they pretend to be. Sylvie has a secret addiction to opium and Christian has an ominous air of intrigue. As this dark and powerful tale progresses, Maud is drawn further into the Morels’ world of elegant deception. Their secrets become hers, and soon she is caught in a scheme of betrayal and revenge that will plunge her into the darkness that waits beneath this glittering city of light. “Dramatic and teeming with intrigue, The Paris Winter is a richly detailed historical novel that both thrills and satisfies.” —Shelf Awareness
Author: David Fahey
Publisher: TeNeues
ISBN: 9783961710249
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
One of a handful of artists to emerge from Andy Warhol's celebrity-focused Interview magazine, Matthew Rolston is a well-established icon of Hollywood photography. Alongside such luminaries as Herb Ritts and Greg Gorman, Rolston was a member of an influential group of photographers (among them, Bruce Weber, Annie Leibovitz, and Steven Meisel) who came from the 1980s magazine scene. Rolston helped define the era's take on celebrity imagemaking, gender bending, and much more. Edited by long-time Los Angeles-based gallerist and curator David Fahey, this book - Rolston's fourth monograph - presents a stunning array of portraits that beautifully and succinctly capture the decade and its myriad talents. From Michael Jackson and Madonna, to Prince, George Michael, and Cyndi Lauper, the selection of images reflects a seamless blend of style, skill, and scintillation. This volume features over 100 mesmerizing photographs selected from Rolston's extensive body of work, centering on his unforgettable portraits of the era's most famous personalities. With essays by authors Pat Hackett, Andy Warhol's longtime biographer and diarist; Colin Westerbeck, noted photographic curator and expert on American photographer Irving Penn; and Charles Churchward, longtime creative director of Vogue magazine and author of The Golden Hour, a definitive biography of Herb Ritts, Hollywood Royale: Out of the School of Los Angeles, paints a fascinating picture of an indelible imagemaker and the movie stars, models, and artists he immortalised during this period. Rolston's photographs recall the glamour of Old Hollywood with postmodern irony, helping to point the way towards the cult of fame we live with today. AUTHOR: Matthew Roston is an artist who works in photography and video. In 1977, Rolston was 'discovered' by Andy Warhol, who commissioned portraits for proto - celebrity magazine, Interview, followed by assignments for Rolling Stone from founding editor Jann Wenner, and soon after, by Vanity Fair, under editors Tina Brown and later, Graydon Carter. Rolston'' 1980s images are notable for their glamorous lighting and detail-rich sets. His work has helped define the contemporary aesthetics of American portrait photography. Rolston's photographs have been exhibited worldwide and are in the permanent collections of LACMA and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., among others. SELLING POINTS: * This volume contains a veritable compendium of Rolston's innovative photographic techniques. The images range from classic vintage-style 8x10 camera portraits to more stylized experiments in cross-processing, multiple exposure, and high-contrast color. * From pop stars to movie stars, TV personalities to socialites, Warhol's protege presents a virtual 'who's who' of 1980s celebrity. 150 colour and b/w photographs
Author: Thomas Doherty
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231535147
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
Between 1933 and 1939, representations of the Nazis and the full meaning of Nazism came slowly to Hollywood, growing more ominous and distinct only as the decade wore on. Recapturing what ordinary Americans saw on the screen during the emerging Nazi threat, Thomas Doherty reclaims forgotten films, such as Hitler's Reign of Terror (1934), a pioneering anti-Nazi docudrama by Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr.; I Was a Captive of Nazi Germany (1936), a sensational true tale of "a Hollywood girl in Naziland!"; and Professor Mamlock (1938), an anti-Nazi film made by German refugees living in the Soviet Union. Doherty also recounts how the disproportionately Jewish backgrounds of the executives of the studios and the workers on the payroll shaded reactions to what was never simply a business decision. As Europe hurtled toward war, a proxy battle waged in Hollywood over how to conduct business with the Nazis, how to cover Hitler and his victims in the newsreels, and whether to address or ignore Nazism in Hollywood feature films. Should Hollywood lie low, or stand tall and sound the alarm? Doherty's history features a cast of charismatic personalities: Carl Laemmle, the German Jewish founder of Universal Pictures, whose production of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) enraged the nascent Nazi movement; Georg Gyssling, the Nazi consul in Los Angeles, who read the Hollywood trade press as avidly as any studio mogul; Vittorio Mussolini, son of the fascist dictator and aspiring motion picture impresario; Leni Riefenstahl, the Valkyrie goddess of the Third Reich who came to America to peddle distribution rights for Olympia (1938); screenwriters Donald Ogden Stewart and Dorothy Parker, founders of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League; and Harry and Jack Warner of Warner Bros., who yoked anti-Nazism to patriotic Americanism and finally broke the embargo against anti-Nazi cinema with Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939).
Author: Robin Bronk
Publisher: Filipacchi Publishing
ISBN: 9781936297467
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Art & Soul is a large-format glossy coffee-table book, featuring intimate portraits of celebrities from the entertainment industry including TV, music, film and stage. The stunning images, shot by Pulitzer prize-winning photographer Brian Smith, are accompanied by personal testimonials from each artist expressing the importance of the arts in our culture and the positive impact it has on our lives. The notes - in each artist's own handwriting - range from whimsical to weighty, but all offer insight into the individual's background and how their lives were shaped by art. The book also contains a foreword by a celebrated public figure involved in this cause. Celebrities photographed for the book include such luminaries as: Adrien Brody, Zooey Deschanel, Adrian Grenier, Anne Hathaway, Samuel L. Jackson, Joe Mantegna, Amanda Peet, John Turturro, Kerry Washington and many more. The book is created in partnership with the Creative Coalition, the premier public advocacy charity, founded by prominent figures in the entertainment industry. It is an important part of a campaign to focus national attention on the need to ensure that arts in America thrive and flourish. A terrific gift, Art & Soul also helps to support the arts, inspiring future generations of creative artists and improving our lives.
