Cinematic flashes : cinephilia and classical Hollywood / Rashna Wadia Richards.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Richards, Rashna Wadia, 1977-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion pictures--United States--History--20th century.

Motion pictures.

United States.

History.

Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)--History--20th century.

Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.).

Physical Description:

xi, 262 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Bloomington : Indiana University Press, [2013]

Summary:

Cinematic Flashes challenges popular notions of a uniform Hollywood style by disclosing uncanny networks of incongruities, coincidences, and contingencies at the margins of the cinematic frame. In an agile demonstration of "cinephiliac" historiography, Rashna Wadia Richards extracts intriguing film fragments from their seemingly ordinary narratives in order to explore what these unexpected moments reveal about the studio era. Inspired by Walter Benjamin's preference for studying cultural fragments rather than composing grand narratives, this unorthodox history of the films of the studio system shows how classical Hollywood emerges as a disjointed network of accidents, excesses, and coincidences. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: inventing cinephiliac historiography

Sonic booms: 1929 and the sensational transition to sound

Show stoppers: 1937 and the chance encounter with chiffons

Signature crimes: 1946 and the strange case of the lost scene (as well as the stranger case of the missing auteur)

Apocalyptic antennae: 1954 and the end of storytelling

Conclusion: the cinephiliac return.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780253006882

0253006880

9780253006929

0253006929

9780253007001

0253007003

OCLC:

798923738