Robert Altman and the Elaboration of Hollywood Storytelling

Mark Minett (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

392 Seiten

2021
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-752382-7 (ISBN)

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Robert Altman and the Elaboration of Hollywood Storytelling reveals an Altman barely glimpsed in previous critical accounts of the filmmaker. This re-examination of his seminal work during the "Hollywood Renaissance" or "New Hollywood" period of the early 1970s (including M*A*S*H, Brewster McCloud, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Images, The Long Goodbye, Thieves Like Us, California Split, and Nashville) sheds new light on both the films and the filmmaker, reframing Altman as a complex, pragmatic innovator whose work exceeds, but is also grounded in, the norms of classical Hollywood storytelling rather than someone who rejected those norms in favor of modernist art cinema. Its findings and approach hold important implications for the study of cinematic authorship. Largely avoiding thematic exegesis, it employs an historical poetics approach, robust functionalist frameworks, archival research, and formal and statistical analysis to demystify the essential features of the standard account of Altman's filmmaking history and profile-lax narrative form, heavy reliance on the zoom, sound design replete with overlapping dialogue, improvisational infidelity to the screenplay, and a desire to subvert based in his time in the training grounds of industrial filmmaking and filmed television. The book provides a clear example of how a filmmaker might work collaboratively and pragmatically within and across media institutions to elaborate upon their sanctioned practices and aims. We misunderstand Altman's work, and the creative work of Hollywood filmmakers in general, when we insist on describing innovation as opposition to institutional norms and on describing those norms as simply assimilating innovation.

Mark Minett is Assistant Professor of Film & Media Studies and English at the University of South Carolina. His research focuses on developing close, contextualized accounts of approaches to storytelling within and across historical periods, industries, and media forms.

Acknowledgments
About the Companion Website

Introduction

Chapter One: Perverse Clotheslines: Altman and Narrative Elaboration

Chapter Two: Quantifying the Subliminal: Altman and the Elaborative Zoom

Chapter Three: Elaborate Chaos: Altman and Overlapping Dialogue

Chapter Four: Improvisation, Transposition, and Elaboration: Altman

Chapter Five: Institutional Elaboration: Altman's Training Grounds

Conclusion

Appendix: Zoom Context Films
Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	15.01.2021
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	243 x 163 mm
Gewicht	717 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
ISBN-10	0-19-752382-X / 019752382X
ISBN-13	978-0-19-752382-7 / 9780197523827
Zustand	Neuware