Designing women : cinema, art deco, and the female form / Lucy Fischer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fischer, Lucy.

Series:

Film and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Art and motion pictures.

Art deco.

Women in motion pictures.

Women in art.

Physical Description:

xii, 285 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2003]

Summary:

The first substantial look at Art Deco's enormous influence on the motion picture and on the New Woman of the 1920s and '30s. Fischer situates the Art Deco movement within the dynamics of American consumerism, revealing how its appeal to women was used to sell cosmetics, clothing, home furnishings, jewelry, and objets d'art. She also investigates its implications for the star system. The book examines a large body of film work, from a variety of genres, in terms of set and costume design as well as narrative structure, and extends its conception of the cinematic "text" beyond the screen to the realm of movie theater design.

Contents:

Introduction: A Method to My Madness 1

1. The Art Deco Style: Modernity and the Feminine 11

2. Counter Culture: Art Deco, Consumerism, and the Department Store 43

3. Design for Living: Marketing Art Deco to Women 61

4. Film Melodrama: Greta Garbo as Art Deco Icon 91

5. Art Deco and the Movie Musical 123

6. Strangers in Paradise: South Seas Films of the Art Deco Era 151

7. Architectural Exoticism and the Art Deco Picture Palace 185

8. Madame Satan: Fantasy, Art Deco, and the Femme Fatale 205.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [257]-272) and index.

ISBN:

0231125003

0231125011

OCLC:

51537172