Columbia University Press
Hollywood's Artists: The Directors Guild of America and the Construction of Authorship
Key Metrics
- Virginia Wright Wexman
- Columbia University Press
- Paperback
- 9780231195690
- 8.9 X 5.9 X 0.8 inches
- 0.9 pounds
- History > United States - 20th Century
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
In Hollywood's Artists, Virginia Wright Wexman offers a groundbreaking history of how movie directors became cinematic auteurs that reveals and pinpoints the influence of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). Guided by Frank Capra's mantra one man, one film, the Guild has portrayed its director-members as the creators responsible for turning Hollywood entertainment into cinematic art. Wexman details how the DGA differentiated itself from other industry unions, focusing on issues of status and creative control as opposed to bread-and-butter concerns like wages and working conditions. She also traces the Guild's struggle for creative and legal power, exploring subjects from the language of on-screen credits to the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigations of the movie industry. Wexman emphasizes the gendered nature of images of the great director, demonstrating how the DGA promoted the idea of the director as a masculine hero. Drawing on a broad array of archival sources, interviews, and theoretical and sociological insight, Hollywood's Artists sheds new light on the ways in which the Directors Guild of America has shaped the role and image of directors both within the Hollywood system and in the culture at large.
Author Bio
Virginia Wright Wexman's specialty is film studies. She teaches courses on film history, film genres, film authorship, and national cinemas. Her books include Creating The Couple: Love, Marriage, And Hollywood Performance; Roman Polanski; A History Of Film (co-authored with Jack Ellis); and an edited volume Film And Authorship. She is currently working on a book entitled, Compromised Positions: Hollywood Directors and the Cultural Construction of the Artist.
Wexman served as President of the Society for Cinema Studies from 1993 to 1995. From 1982 to 1987 she edited the Society's quarterly Cinema Journal.
Source: University of Illinois Chicago
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