Description
In 1999, Elia Kazan received an Oscar for lifetime achievement. It was a controversial award. This book gives a reassessment of Kazan's technique with various actors, and his concern to photograph authentic behaviour. It reviews Kazan's style and debates the reception of Kazan's work and the controversy of his 1952 Congressional testimony.
About the Author
Brian Neve is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Bath. He is the co-editor of 'Cinema, Politics and Society in America' (1986), author of 'Film and Politics in America: A Social Tradition' (1992, 2000) and an associate editor of the New York based film and politics quarterly 'Cineaste'.
Reviews
Elia Kazan ' s reputation has been kicked around - since his controversial Life Achievement Award at the 1999 Academy Awards and his obituaries four years later - in ways which have seriously obscured an understanding of his work as a filmmaker. Brian Neve's book, by judicious use of archive material (notebooks, letters, scripts) and careful analysis of the films themselves as well as their critical afterlife, at last sets the record straight. The books sensitive treatment of the HUAC hearings of 1952, and well-informed analysis of such key films as 'Viva Zapata', 'On the Waterfront', 'Baby Doll' and the underrated 'The Arrangement', amount to a major critical achievement. 'Elia Kazan: The Cinema of an American Outsider' is less interested in settling old scores than in taking the work of this deep-thinking, driven artist - who made one big mistake in April 1952 - as seriously as it deserves - Christopher Frayling. Working with an impressively wide variety of archival material, including Kazan s personal papers and notebooks, Brian Neve here offers a solidly researched, insightful, and historically grounded portrait of Elia Kazan, his working methods, his 19 feature films from 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' (1945) to 'The Last Tycoon' (1976), and his place in the cinematic and social world of his age - Chuck Maland, Professor of Cinema Studies & American Studies, University of Tennessee.
Book Information
ISBN 9781845115609
Author Brian Neve
Format Hardback
Page Count 264
Imprint I.B. Tauris
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC