By Jeremy Carr. There has never been a self-referential Hollywood feature quite like 1975’s The Day of the Locust, a twisting and twisted tale of sullied lives, desperation, and, ultimately, sheer madness.” Hollywood has always been rather good at building itself up, generating films that flaunt the glamour of Tinseltown, […]
Recognizing Belafonte
By Robert K. Lightning. If Poitier’s films frequently situate him as an integrationist hero, successfully negotiating the rocky path to white acceptance, Belafonte’s films typically chart a very different path where acceptance is not always the goal, making him often Poitier’s cinematic antithesis.” With the announcement of Harry Belafonte’s death […]
An Ardent Appreciation – Crooked, but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges
A Book Review by Jeremy Carr. While Klawans routinely sings the praises of Sturges, he also expresses an evenhanded awareness of certain shortcomings, making this critical analysis from Columbia University Press a perceptive, exceptionally well-composed and earnest evaluation.” Lest there be any doubt about Stuart Klawans’s regard for the subject […]
Between Compliance and Resistance: Mapping the Careers of Wallace Fox and Nipo Strongheart in Early Hollywood
By Andrew H. Fisher. Taken together, their careers allows us to see Hollywood Indians as agents of film history, rather than merely as objects of the cinematic gaze.” During the early decades of the twentieth century, Hollywood seemed to be full of chiefs but not enough Indians. Thanks to the […]