bookshelf

MOVIE LOVE IN THE FIFTIES

Name: MOVIE LOVE IN THE FIFTIES
Author: James Harvey
ISBN: 0-394-58591-7

by James Harvey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 25, 2001

A collection that will have readers scurrying to the video store.

bookshelf

A stimulating look at American films of the 1950s.

In this conversational yet highly lucid collection of essays, Harvey (Romantic Comedy in Hollywood, 1987) discusses the ways movies shaped—and were shaped by—the cultural changes that followed in the wake of WWII. Mercifully, these are not the musings of a social historian but of a movie nut—and the loving detail lavished on each of the films analyzed at length, beginning with Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past and ending with Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life, reflects Harvey’s infatuation with the medium. Although he is clearly a sophisticated guide to the decade and its movies, the author has little time for voguish theories borrowed from literary criticism and instead offers refreshing, common-sense insights. Typical of his style is his take on Brando’s portrayal of Stanley Kowalski: he “felt at times like the kind of explosive truth-teller the culture will occasionally produce just when the cant and the banality seem most unchallengeable, someone who cuts through all the bullshit and to hell with it.” Despite his enthusiasm for certain of Brando’s early performances, Harvey recognizes the profound contrast between the emerging “boy” stars of the ’50s—Brando, Dean, Clift—and their predecessors. While male leads had previously embodied the “antinarcissist idea of maleness,” these new stars “instead of inviting us to grow up, were commiserating with us about failing to.” In that respect, Harvey contends that the movies reflected the inward-turning mood of Americans during the Cold War. However, while the collection draws parallels between American society and its films, the primary focus remains on the movies themselves and the people who made them: Orson Welles, Nicholas Ray, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Robert Siodmak, to name a few.

A collection that will have readers scurrying to the video store.

Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2001

ISBN: 0-394-58591-7

Page Count: 464

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

bookshelf

NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

bookshelf

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

bookshelf

TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

bookshelf

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.