A Divided World

Hollywood Cinema and Emigr Directors in the Era of Roosevelt and Hitler, 1933-1948

By: Nick Smedley

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Paperback | 15 February 2011 | Edition Number 1

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Paperback
277 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.3 x 1.73 x 0.15

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This book summarises the key social, political and cultural changes that took place in the USA during the New Deal era, and examines how the Hollywood film community responded. The book also provides a detailed analysis of how the major works of three European directors - Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder and Ernst Lubitsch - related to those of their mainstream Hollywood colleagues. It explores how the liberal experiments of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal affected the Hollywood film industry and how the reactions of the European directors differed. The book also presents new interpretations of Hollywood's attitudes towards women' rights focusing on the deeply ingrained cultural denigration of women rather than strong female actresses of the time. Smedley presents new information and interpretations of this influential period in American film history that will redefine standard approaches to film history of this era and generate a significant amount of debate, controversy, challenge and further scholarship.

Industry Reviews

"A well-researched, often intelligent survey of Hollywood cinema during and after Roosevelt's presidency."

--Nigel Andrews "Financial Times" (1/28/2011 12:00:00 AM)

"Smedley, a British film historian, devotes A Divided World to an examination of Hollywood before, during, and immediately after World War II. According to Smedley's overview, the American film colony warmly embraced FDR's liberal idealism of the 1930s. But in the 1940s, when the New Deal came increasingly under attack from Republicans, Hollywood did not rally a liberal defense and instead responded with a cinema of alienation and anxiety. Yet within this community of mostly American-born directors, Smedley notes, there emerged a brilliant trio of ?migr?s--Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder and Fritz Lang--who did not subscribe to the governing Hollywood approach. All three had worked in Berlin before the rise of the Third Reich. And all three made Hollywood films that were not only skillfully crafted but also profoundly different from the usual studio productions, "articulating criticisms of American society left unsaid by their contemporaries."

--Stefan Kanfer "Wall Street Journal" (4/30/2011 12:00:00 AM)

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