Abraham Polonsky (eBook)

Interviews

Andrew Dickos (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013 | EPUB Single
256 Seiten
University Press of Mississippi (Verlag)
978-1-62846-717-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Interviews with the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Body and Soul and the director of Force of Evil and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here

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Abraham Polonsky (1910-1999), screenwriter and filmmaker of the mid-twentieth-century Left, recognized his writerly mission to reveal the aspirations of his characters in a material society structured to undermine their hopes. In the process, he ennobled their struggle. His auspicious beginning in Hollywood reached a zenith with his Oscar-nominated screenplay for Robert Rossen's boxing noir film, Body and Soul (1947), and his inaugural film as writer and director, Force of Evil (1948), before he was blacklisted during the McCarthy witch hunt. Polonsky envisioned cinema as a modern artist. His aesthetic appreciation for each technical component of the screen aroused him to create voiceovers of urban cadences-poetic monologues spoken by the city's everyman, embodied by the actor who played his heroes best, John Garfield. His use of David Raksin's score in Force of Evil, against the backdrop of the grandeur of New York City's landscape and the conflict between the brothers Joe and Leo Morse, elevated film noir into classical family tragedy. Like Garfield, Polonsky faced persecution and an aborted career during the blacklist. But unlike Garfield, Polonsky survived to resume his career in Hollywood during the ferment of the late sixties. Then his vision of a changing society found allegorical expression in Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, his impressive anti-Western showing the destruction of the Paiute rebel outsider, Willie Boy, and cementing Polonsky as a moral voice in cinema.

Autor

lt;b>Andrew Dickos is author of Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir and Intrepid Laughter: Preston Sturges and the Movies. He is a commentator on Paramount Home Entertainment's DVD of Preston Sturges's The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and the contributor on film noir to the Columbia World of Quotations.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.1.2013
• Reihe/Serie: Conversations with Filmmakers Series
• Reihe/Serie: Conversations with Filmmakers Series
• Verlagsort: Jackson
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
• Themenwelt: Reisen ► Reiseberichte ► Nord- / Mittelamerika
• Schlagworte: Biography • body and soul • Charlie Chaplin • Cold War • Communist Party • David Raksin • Ernest Hemingway • Film • Force of Evil • Great Depression • Hollywood blacklist • Joe Leo Morse • John Garfield • Joseph McCarthy witch hunt • Madigan • material society • New York City NYC • noir cinematography • Odds Against Tomorrow • oscar nomination • Paramount Studios • performing arts • Robert Rossen • screenwriter • Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here • voiceovers • World War II WWII
• ISBN-10: 1-62846-717-7 / 1628467177
• ISBN-13: 978-1-62846-717-8 / 9781628467178