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ReFocus: The American Directors Series
Series Editors: Robert Singer and Gary Rhodes
This series produces new critical volumes from an interdisciplinary perspective, bringing influential, yet neglected, American directors to the attention of a new audience of scholars and students in both Film Studies and American Studies.
ReFocus: The Films of Preston Sturges
'This book brings American cinema's most idiosyncratic, prodigious comic genius into deep focus for twenty-first-century readers. Hail the conquering editors Kozloff and Jaeckle, who have coaxed newly researched essays to converse with one another, writing in effervescent language worthy of the Master himself.'
Claudia Gorbman, Professor Emerita of Film Studies, University of Washington Tacoma
Director, screenwriter and comic genius, Preston Sturges has been an influence on filmmakers ranging from Orson Welles to the Coen Brothers. The first person to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, he wrote and directed some of the most bizarre, controversial, and downright hilarious comedies of the 1940s, including Sullivan's Travels and Hail the Conquering Hero. He may be the most talented Hollywood filmmaker who has yet to receive the critical recognition he deserves.
The Films of Preston Sturges is a pioneering collection of essays by renowned scholars that charts Sturges's contributions to Hollywood cinema, revealing his pivotal status as an early writer-director, exploring his inimitable style, and making a bold case for his ongoing influence today. Reawakening interest in this filmmaker's life and works, this book reminds readers why Sturges's movies remain not only immensely enjoyable, but of great cultural significance as well.
Jeff Jaeckle is Instructor of Composition and Literature at Portland Community College.
Sarah Kozloff is Professor of Film on the William R. Kenan Jr. Chair, Vassar College.
Cover image: publicity photo, The Lady Eve, 1941 Dir. Preston Sturges © Paramount/The Kobal Collection
Cover design: Stuart Dalziel
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Inhaltsverzeichnis
Introduction: An Agile Mind: The Many Stands of Preston Sturges, Jeff Jaeckle
Contexts: Genre, Studio, AuthorshipPreston Sturges and Screwball Comedy, Leger Grindon
Preston Sturges, Sullivan's Travels, and Film Authorship in Hollywood, 1941, Virginia Wright Wexman
To Write and Not Direct, Sarah Kozloff
"The Edge of Unacceptability": Preston Sturges and the PCA, Matthew Bernstein
Cultural Commentary: History and IdentitySturges's Many Mothers, Kristine Karnick
"These Are Troublous Times": Social Class in the Comedies of Preston Sturges, Christopher Beach
"They Always Get the Best of You Somehow": Preston Sturges in Black and White, Krin Gabbard
Falling Hard: The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, Joe McElhaney
Technique: Scripting, Performance, MusicThe Unheard Song of Joy, Jeff Jaeckle
The Eye of the Storm: Preston Sturges and Performance, Diane Carson
Presto(n) con Spirito: Comedies with Music, Sturges-Style, Martin Marks
Impact: Reception/ReputationThrust with a Rapier and Run: The Critics and Preston Sturges, G. Tom Poe
Hail the Conquering Auteur: Preston Sturges in La Revue du cinéma (1946-1949), Christian Viviani
O Preston, Where Art Thou?, Sarah Kozloff
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Jeff Jaeckle is the editor of Film Dialogue (Wallflower Press, 2013) and co-editor (with Sarah Kozloff) of ReFocus: The Films of Preston Sturges (EUP, 2015). His scholarship on language in cinema, aesthetics and Hollywood film has also appeared in Film Quarterly, New Review of Film and Television Studies and Quarterly Review of Film and Video. He holds a doctorate from the University of Texas-Austin and teaches at Portland Community College.Sarah Kozloff is Professor of Film on the William R. Kenan Jr. Chair, Vassar College
Zusammenfassung
This first collection of critical essays on Preston Sturges—director, screenwriter, comic genius of Hollywood—reawakens interest in the filmmaker’s life and works and reminds readers why his movies continue to be culturally significant and immensely enjoyable.
