Books in French are on www.livres-cinema.info
The Last Word
The Hollywood Novel and the Studio System
(0 vote)Average rating:
| 0 | rating |  = We can do without |
| 0 | rating |  = Good book |
| 0 | rating |  = Excellent book |
| 0 | rating |  = Unique / a reference |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
• Includes extensive archival research of early Hollywood
• Recovers and contextualizes forgotten Hollywood novels
• Traces the industry's structural changes during World War II
The Last Word argues that the Hollywood novel opened up space for cultural critique of the film industry at a time when the industry lacked the capacity to critique itself. While the young studio system worked tirelessly to burnish its public image in the wake of celebrity scandal, several industry insiders wrote fiction to fill in what newspapers and fan magazines left out. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, these novels aimed to expose the invisible machinery of classical Hollywood cinema, including not only the evolving artifice of the screen but also the promotional discourse that complemented it. As likeminded filmmakers in the 1940s and 1950s gradually brought the dark side of the industry to the screen, however, the Hollywood novel found itself struggling to live up to its original promise of delivering the unfilmable. By the 1960s, desperate to remain relevant, the genre had devolved into little more than erotic fantasy of movie stars behind closed doors, perhaps the only thing the public couldn't already find elsewhere. Still, given their unique ability to speak beyond the institutional restraints of their time, these earlier works offer a window into the industry's dynamic creation and re-creation of itself in the public imagination.
About the Author:
Justin Gautreau, Lecturer in the Merritt Writing Program, University of California, Merced Justin Gautreau is Lecturer for the Merritt Writing Program at the University of California, Merced, where he also teaches classes in film. His work has appeared in Genre and Adaptation.
Press Reviews:
"The Last Word is an absolute pleasure to read — well-written, well-researched, and illuminating. Justin Gautreau's readings of canonical and neglected works are smart and insightful. A truly splendid book!" - Steven Cohan, author of Hollywood by Hollywood: The Backstudio Picture and the Mystique of Making Movies
See the publisher website: Oxford University Press
> On a related topic:
Adventures of a Hollywood Secretary (2006)
Her Private Letters from Inside the Studios of the 1920s
by Valeria Belletti and Cari Beauchamp
Hollywood Bohemians (2008)
Transgressive Sexuality and the Selling of the Movieland Dream
Subject: Sociology
Forbidden Hollywood (2019)
The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934): When Sin Ruled the Movies
Poverty Row Studios, 1929–1940 (2005)
An Illustrated History of 55 Independent Film Companies, with a Filmography for Each
Just Making Movies (2005)
Company Directors on the Studio System
Radical Hollywood (2003)
The Untold Story Behind America's Favorite Movies
by Paul Buhle and David Wagner
Back
