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ReFocus: The Films of Barbara Kopple
By Jeff Jaeckle and Susan Ryan
As the first woman to win two Best Documentary Oscars and the recipient of numerous lifetime achievement awards, Barbara Kopple deserves scholarly attention. Two of her early documentaries, Harlan County USA and American Dream, not only won Academy Awards but are foundational within the study of documentary as a whole.
In ReFocus: The Films of Barbara Kopple, a range of international scholars trace Kopple's career to date, analysing her contributions in the contexts of funding, style, production and reception, and examining her films' interrogations of social class using the lenses of gender, sexuality and race. In a shifting digital media landscape, Kopple's critical reputation is also assessed, alongside her enduring influence on contemporary filmmakers.
Jeff Jaeckle holds a doctorate from the University of Texas-Austin and teaches at Portland Community College. Susan Ryan worked with Barbara Kopple for several years as a producer and archival researcher. She teaches documentary production and film studies at The College of New Jersey.
List of contents
Notes on contributors; Foreword, Bill Nichols; Barbara Kopple: A Career of Personal Crises and Creative Tensions, Jeff Jaeckle; Historical Contexts & Cultural Commentary; Harlan County USA and the Documentary Form: A 40-Year Retrospective, E. Ann Kaplan; American Dream in God's Country: Odysseys in Documentary, Hospitality, Place, Paula Rabinowitz; The Kopple Effect: Women Directing Documentaries, Tom Zaniello; Gender Agency: Harlan County USA, Shut Up & Sing, and This is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous, Kate Hearst; The Peekskill Projects: Race, Riots, and Paul Robeson, Jeff Jaeckle; Celebrity and Vulnerability in Three Documentaries by Barbara Kopple, Heather McIntosh; Technique: Interviews, Music, Funding, and Fiction Filmmaking; Fallen Champ: Poetics of the Documentary Interview, Leger Grindon; Which Side Are You On: An Intersectional Approach to Music in Three Films by Barbara Kopple, Augusta Palmer; Blurring Lines and Intersecting Realities in Barbara Kopple's Fictional Work, Susan Ryan; Kopple's Work Within the Changing Documentary Business Ecology, Patricia Aufderheide; Exposing the Lethal Gaze in Shut Up & Sing and Running from Crazy, Jaimie Baron; Impacts: Critical Reception and Ongoing Influence; Barbara Kopple: Acolyte to Leading Light, Betsy A. McLane; Kopple & Her Critics, Gregory Brown; Afterword: Getting Inside, John Corner
About the author
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.Susan Ryan holds a doctorate in Cinema Studies from NYU and teaches documentary production and film studies at The College of New Jersey. She worked with Barbara Kopple for several years as a producer and archival researcher on Fallen Champ, Defending Our Daughters, My Generation, A Conversation with Gregory Peck, and several other documentaries. She is also the producer/director of From the 'Burg to the Barrio (2012).
Summary
In 'ReFocus: The Films of Barbara Kopple', a range of international scholars trace Kopple's career to date, analysing her contributions in the contexts of funding, style, production and reception, and examining her films' interrogations of social class using the lenses of gender, sexuality and race.
