Peerless
University of Wisconsin Press (Verlag)
978-0-299-34820-5 (ISBN)
A proud Armenian who claimed a distant link to nobility, born in what was then part of czarist Russia, Rouben Mamoulian (1897–1987) became one of the most astonishing and confounding directors of American film and theater, directing the original stage productions of Porgy and Bess, Carousel, and Oklahoma!, as well as films including Love Me Tonight, Queen Christina, City Streets, and Silk Stockings. He was famously fired from the film version of Porgy and Bess in a dispute over publicity, and quit Cleopatra after arguments over a single scene. His iconoclastic self-confidence was high among the reasons he had a reputation for being unable to compromise.
This frustrating mix of genius and stubbornness, of critical successes and financial flops, has proven challenging for biographers. Any examination of Mamoulian’s life must explore film, theater, and music history, while being conscious of the racial culture in both American society and the world of entertainment during the mid-twentieth century. Kurt Jensen’s magisterial volume, extensively researched and filled with trenchant observations, brings to life this charming, flawed, and fascinating man.
With lived-in details and surprising revelations, Jensen fleshes out the contours of a remarkable life. Drawing upon Mamoulian’s unfinished memoir and voluminous diaries, as well as interviews with the director’s surviving collaborators, he delivers fresh and informative insider stories from seminal productions. Meanwhile, he explores Mamoulian’s aesthetic principles and strategies as manifested in lighting, choreography, and sound design. Jensen reveals Mamoulian’s mercurial confidence and autocratic tendencies at the height of his power, demonstrating how the wellspring of his art contained the seeds of his own destruction. A tour de force, Peerless offers readers a multifaceted, in-depth look at an idiosyncratic genius.
Kurt Jensen has been a film reviewer and news writer for several Catholic publications, and his contributions have been published in Studies in Musical Theatre and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Introduction: Enjoy the Journey
1. Tiflis to New York
2. Catfish Row
3. From Eugene O’Neill to Burlesque
4. Finding Elissa
5. Those Darn Cats
6. Isn’t it Romantic?
7. Dietrich and Garbo
8. In Which Anna and Miriam Star
9. My Colored Brainchild
10. The Folks Who Live on the Hill
11. Golden Holden
12. Mon General Zanuck
13. A Bright Golden Haze
14. Otto and Ethel
15. A Real Nice Clambake
16. Come Rain or Come Shine
17. Found in the Stars
18. Mamoulian Marches On
19. Breathtaking Cinemascope
20. Perfidy and Bess
21. Dulce et Decorum est Cleopatra Mori
22. Leavin’ Time
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
| Erscheinungsdatum | 22.03.2024 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Wisconsin Film Studies |
| Zusatzinfo | 35 b-w photos |
| Verlagsort | Wisconsin |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Gewicht | 626 g |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte |
| Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV | |
| Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-299-34820-2 / 0299348202 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-299-34820-5 / 9780299348205 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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