The Hollywood Film Musical / Edition 1

by Barry Keith Grant

Overview

This revealing history of the American film musical synthesizes the critical literature on the genre and provides a series of close analytical readings of iconic musical films, focusing on their cultural relationship to other aspects of American popular music.

• Offers a depth of scholarship that will appeal to students and scholars
• Leads a crucial analysis of the cultural context of musicals, particularly the influence of popular music on the genre
• Delves into critical issues behind these films such as race, gender, ideology, and authorship
• Features close readings of canonical and neglected film musicals from the 1930s to the present including: Top Hat, Singin' in the Rain, Woodstock, Gimme Shelter, West Side Story, and Across the Universe

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781405182522
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	04/23/2012
Series:	New Approaches to Film Genre
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	896,240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.42(d)

About the Author

Barry Keith Grant is Professor of Communication, Popular Culture, and Film at Brock University in Ontario, Canada. He is the author or editor of more than two dozen books, including Auteurs and Authorship: a Film Reader (2008) Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology (2007), Film Genre Reader (2003), and The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (1996). As well as being an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he is the series editor of the New Approaches to Film Genre series for Wiley-Blackwell.

Table of Contents

List of Plates ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

1 Historical Overview 7

2 Critical Overview 38

3 Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) 55

4 Top Hat (1935) 70

5 The Pirate (1948) 85

6 West Side Story (1961) and Saturday Night Fever (1977) 99

7 Woodstock (1970) 116

8 Phantom of the Paradise (1974) 131

9 Pennies from Heaven (1981) and Across the Universe (2007) 146

References 165

Index 171

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Barry Grant gracefully articulates the pleasures of that most joyous of Hollywood’s genres.  A must read for anyone who loves musicals and, especially, for those who think they don’t."
-David Desser, University of Illinois

"Elegantly conceived and beautifully illustrated, The Hollywood Film Musical introduces the genre with all its problematic glories.  Grant is meticulous as a historian and scrupulous as a cultural critic.  Did I mention the beautiful illustrations?"
-Krin Gabbard, Stony Brook University

Editorial Reviews

Summing Up: Recommended.  Lower-and upper-division undergraduates; general readers.”  (Choice, 1 November 2012)

From the Publisher