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From his breakthrough films - The Unbelievable Truth (1989), Trust (1990), and Simple Men (1992) - to his recently completed 'Henry Fool' trilogy, Hartley has honed a rigorous, deadpan, and instantly recognizable film style informed by both European modernism and playful revisions of Classical Hollywood genres. Featuring new essays on this important director and his films, this collection explores Hartley's work from a variety of aesthetic, cultural, and economic contexts, while also looking closely at his collaborations with actors, the contexts of his authorial reputation, his reworking of the romantic comedy and other genres, and the shifting economics of his filmmaking.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: Hal Hartley: A Quality of Attention, by Steven Rybin
1. Up Close and Impersonal: Hal Hartley and the Persistence of Tradition, by David Bordwell
2. 'Young. Middle-Class. College-Educated. Unskilled.': Hal Hartley in 1991, by Mark L. Berrettini
3. 'Some Things Shouldn't Be Fixed': Frameworks of Critical Reception and the Early Career of Hal Hartley, by Jason Davids Scott
4. The Locality of Hal Hartley: The Aesthetics and Business of Smallness, by Steven Rawle
5. Hal Hartley's Romantic Comedy, by Sebastian Manley
6. A New Man: The Logic of the Break in Hal Hartley's Amateur, by Daniel Varndell
7. Not Getting It:
Flirt as Anti-Puzzle Film, by Steven Rybin
8. Poiesis and Media in
The Book of Life and
No Such Thing, by Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns
9. Bodies, Space and Theatre in
The Unbelievable Truth (and its American Precursors), by Zachary Tavlin
10. Parker Posey as Hal Hartley's 'Captive Actress', by Jennifer O'Meara
11. The Figure Who Writes: On the
Henry Fool Trilogy, by Steven Rybin
Filmography
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Steven Rybin is assistant professor of film studies in the English department at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He is the author of
Michael Mann: Crime Auteur and Terrence Malick and the Thought of Film (2011) and co-editor of
Lonely Places, Dangerous Ground: Nicholas Ray in American Cinema (2014).
Summary
Featuring new essays on this important director and his films, this collection explores Hartley’s work from a variety of aesthetic, cultural, and economic contexts, while also looking closely at his collaborations with actors, his reworking of the romantic comedy and other genres, and the shifting economics of his filmmaking.
Report
"Hal Hartley has been at work for a quarter of a century and his films still seem like fresh discoveries. Independent, individualistic, idiosyncratic, and indefatigable, he defies all known pigeonholes, and this balanced, wide-ranging collection marks a welcome new stage in the exploration of his work." - David Sterritt, author of The Cinema of Clint Eastwood: Chronicles of America
