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OverviewBilly Wilder's Sunset Boulevard was a critical and commercial success on its release in 1950 and remains a classic of film noir and one of the best-known Hollywood films about Hollywood. Both its opening, with William Holden as the screenwriter Joe Gillis floating facedown in ageing star Norma Desmond's (Gloria Swanson) pool, and lines such as 'I am big, it's the pictures that got small' are some of the most memorable in Classical Hollywood cinema. Steven Cohan's study of the film draws on original archival research to shed new light on the film's production history, and the contribution to the film's success and meanings of director Wilder, stars Holden and Swanson but also supporting actors Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson (who plays Betty Schaefer), Cecil B. DeMille, and Hedda Hopper, as well as costumier Edith Head, and composer Franz Waxman. Cohan considers the film both as a 'backstudio' picture (a movie about Hollywood) and as a film noir, and in the context of McCarthyism, blacklisting and the Hollywood Ten. Cohan explores how the film was marketed, its reception and afterlife, tracing how the film is at once a product of its own particular historical moment as the movie industry was transitioning out of the studio era, yet one that still speaks powerfully to contemporary audiences, and speculates on the reasons for its enduring appeal. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Steven Cohan (Syracuse University, USA)Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Imprint: BFI Publishing ISBN: 9781839024085ISBN 10: 1839024089 Pages: 104 Publication Date: 08 September 2022 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Sunset Boulevard:Ready for its close-up 1. It's a Hollywood Story 2. It Happened in Hollywood! 3. It's a Great Motion Picture! Conclusion; Is Hollywood the City of Dreams...or Heartbreak? Notes CreditsReviewsCohan offers a highly animated, wonderfully rich, and thoroughly engaging reappraisal of Billy Wilder's landmark film, combining a meticulous reconstruction of its production history, a probing formal and contextual analysis of the picture, and an equally convincing account of its enduring legacy. -- Noah Isenberg, The University of Texas at Austin, USA Author InformationSteven Cohan is Dean's Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Syracuse University, USA and President of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. His books include Telling Stories: A Theoretical Analysis of Narrative (1988, co-authored with Linda M. Shires), Masked Men: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties (1997), Incongruous Entertainment: Camp, Cultural Value, and the MGM Musical (2005); a BFI TV Classic on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2008); The Sound of Musicals (BFI 2010) and Hollywood by Hollywood: The Backstudio Picture and the Mystique of Making Movies (2018). Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |