Film Stardom and the Ancient Past

Idols, Artefacts and Epics
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-137-39001-1
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan

Buch, Englisch, 311 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 538 g

This book offers the first comprehensive exploration of how the ancient past has shaped screen stardom in Hollywood since the silent era. It engages with debates on historical reception, gender and sexuality, nostalgia, authenticity and the uses of the past. Michael Williams gives fresh insights into ‘divinized stardom’, a highly influential and yet understudied phenomenon that predates Hollywood and continues into the digital age. 
Case studies include Greta Garbo and Mata Hari (1931); Buster Crabbe and the 1930s Olympian body; the marketing of Rita Hayworth as Venus in the 1940s; sculpture and star performance in Oliver Stone’s Alexander (2004); landscape and sexuality in Troy (2004); digital afterimages of stars such as Marilyn Monroe; and the classical body in the contemporary ancient epic genre. The author’s richly layered ‘archaeological’ approach uses detailed textual analysis and archival research to survey the use of themyth and iconography of ancient Greece and Rome in some of stardom’s most popular and fascinating incarnations. This interdisciplinary study will be significant for anyone interested in star studies, film and cultural history, and classical reception.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Williams, Michael

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunst, allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmtheorie, Filmanalyse

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction: An Archaeology of Stardom.- 2.  Section One: Oracles and Olympians -  ‘Above Everything?’: Idols and Idolatry in Mata Hari (1931).- 3. ‘The American Adonis’: The Hollywood Olympian Body.- 4.  Section Two: Down to Earth: Rebuilding the Hollywood Pantheon -  ‘A Dream of a Theme’: Down to Earth (1947), Rita Hayworth and Marketing the Post-war Goddess.- 5. Idols, Fragments and Reconstructions.- 6.  Section Three: Heroes Will Rise: Patinated Pasts and Digital Futures -  Patinating the Past: Stars, Artefacts and Alexander (2004).- 7. ‘Remember Me’: Memory and Landscape in Troy (Wolfgang Petersen, 2004).- 8. Titans, Immortals and Broken Idols: Classicism in the Digital Age.

Über Autor(innen)

Michael Williams is Associate Professor in Film at the University of Southampton, UK. He is the author of Film Stardom, Myth and Classicism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), Ivor Novello (BFI, 2003), and co-editor of British Silent Cinema and the Great War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).