Cinema at the Margins

By (author) Wheeler Dixon

Publication date:

01 December 2013

Publisher

Anthem Press

Dimensions:

229x153mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781783080168

More and more, just a few canonical classics, such as Michael Curtiz’s “Casablanca” (1942) or Victor Fleming’s “Gone With The Wind” (1939), are representing the entire film output of an era, to a new generation that knows little of the past, and is encouraged by popular media to live only in the eternal present. What will happen to the rest of the films that enchanted, informed and transported audiences in the 1930s, 1940s, and even as recently as the 1960s? This collection of essays aims to highlight some of the lesser-known treasures of the past – those titles that have been pushed aside by today’s wave of cinema amnesia.

Acknowledgments; Introduction; PART I. GENRE: 1. The Future Catches Up with the Past: Peter Bogdanovich’s “Targets”; 2. Surrealism and Sudden Death in the Films of Lucio Fulci; 3. “Flash Gordon” and the 1930s and ’40s Science Fiction Serial; 4. Just the Facts, Man: The Complicated Genesis of Television’s Dragnet; 5. The Disquieting Aura of Fabián Bielinsky; PART II. HISTORY: 6. Fast Worker: The Films of Sam Newfield; 7. The Power of Resistance: “Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne”; 8. Beyond Characterization: Performance in 1960s Experimental Cinema; 9. Vanishing Point: The Last Days of Film; PART III. INTERVIEWS: 10. “Let the Sleepers Sleep and the Haters Hate”: An Interview with Dale “Rage” Resteghini; 11. “Margin Call”: An Interview with J. C. Chandor; 12. “All My Films Are Personal”: An Interview with Pat Jackson; 13. Working Within the System: An Interview with Gerry O’Hara; 14. Andrew V. McLaglen: Last of the Hollywood Professionals; 15. Pop Star, Director, Actor: An Interview with Michael Sarne; Works Cited and Consulted; About the Author; Index

“Few have explored the cinematic margins as thoroughly as Wheeler Winston Dixon, and few match his talent for finding and celebrating the secret glories of overlooked, undervalued films. Gliding from Peter Bogdanovich to Myra Breckinridge by way of Robert Bresson, this is an exciting and ever-surprising collection.” —David Sterritt, Columbia University and Chair, National Society of Film Critics