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Top Hat is the first volume to spotlight this classic Hollywood film, probing the musical genre, notions of romance and subjectivity, as well as the contested relations between the sexes. Offers a detailed analysis of one of Hollywood's greatest musicals, including a comprehensive survey of the film's production, promotion and reception, all measured against the background of 1930s socio-political contexts in the USA Explores the musical genre and questions of (gendered) national identity, romance, subjectivity and the notion of the couple Written in a clear, accessible style, Top Hat probes text and context carefully to appeal to the student and teacher of the musical and of Hollywood film history, as well as the film-loving general reader
Uniquely, the book offers an extended analysis of Bunuel's films in the context of contemporary debates in film studies, focusing in particular on questions of subjectivity and desire. Throughout, Bunuel's films are viewed as both the brilliant, subversive expressions of the director's fantasies and obsessions and as reflections of wider cultural norms and preoccupations. Making use of psychoanalysis and gender theory, Peter Evans explores Bunuel's characteristic thematics of transgression and his status as exile or outsider.
Acclaimed by musicologists and illustrated with dozens of photographs, a detailed, painstakingly researched and finely written biography examines the life and music of the influential, classically trained jazz pianist Bill Evans and includes a full discography of his recordings. UP.
Peter William Evans conducts a formidable analysis of Almodovar's insights into gender, sexuality and subjectivity, and discusses the film against the background of political and social changes in Spain since 1975.
This major study ranges over British director Reed's entire career, combining observation of general trends and patterns with detailed analysis of twenty films, both acknowledged masterpieces and lesser-known works. Films examined include Bank Holiday, A Girl Must Live, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, The Third Man, Night Train to Munich, The Way Ahead, Outcast of the Islands, Trapeze and Oliver!.
Ava Gardner was one of the most glamorous and famous stars in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Her list of films includes The Killers, Showboat and Mogambo, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for best actress, and her co-stars included Clark Gable, Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Humphrey Bogart, Charlton Heston, and Richard Burton - the A-list of male Hollywood stars. Married three times - to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra - the first two lasted only about a year each whilst her marriage to Sinatra lasted several. She had a long-running affair with Howard Hughes, and a briefer one with George C. Scott, among others. In Ava Gardner, she has much to say about her hu...
Written on the Wind (1956) is one of classical Hollywood's most striking films and ranks among Douglas Sirk's finest achievements. An intense melodrama about an alcoholic playboy who marries the woman his best friend secretly loves, the film is highly stylised, psychologically complex, and marked by Sirk's characteristic charting of the social realities of 1950s America. This first single study of Written on the Wind reassesses the film's artistic heritage and place within the wider framework of contemporary American culture. Incorporating original archival research, Peter William Evans examines the production, promotion and reception of Written on the Wind, exploring its themes – of time, memory, space, family, class and sex – as well as its brilliance of form. Its vivid aesthetics, powerful performances and profound treatment of human emotions, make Written on the Wind a masterpiece of Hollywood melodrama.
This book explores the complex ways in which recent cultural discourses on gender and sexuality have found their way into the apparently inflexible structure of romantic comedy.
In recent years, debate on the state's economic role has too often devolved into diatribes against intervention. Peter Evans questions such simplistic views, offering a new vision of why state involvement works in some cases and produces disasters in others. To illustrate, he looks at how state agencies, local entrepreneurs, and transnational corporations shaped the emergence of computer industries in Brazil, India, and Korea during the seventies and eighties. Evans starts with the idea that states vary in the way they are organized and tied to society. In some nations, like Zaire, the state is predatory, ruthlessly extracting and providing nothing of value in return. In others, like Korea, ...
Biblical Epics: Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema is a major survey and analysis of the relationship between religion and film, and traces the development of this genre in Hollywood. The book examines the impact of religion, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender on this complex genre, within the context of American history. Together, Bruce Francis Babington and Peter William Evans raise questions of narrative spectacle, Jewish-Christian relations, authorship, star meanings, the representation of Christ, and sexual desire. The authors theorize the Biblical epic in its three main forms: the Old Testament epic; the Christ film; and the Roman-Christian epic. Films analyzed include David and Bathsheba, The Last Temptation of Christ, The King of Kings, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Demetrius and the Gladiators, Samson and Delilah, and Ben Hur.