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For more than fifty years, High Noon has been a touchstone in the popular imagination and a source of endless controversy about film art. On its release it was hailed as a masterpiece. But film historians and theorists have also reviled it almost from the beginning as pretentious "social realism" inspired by its screenwriter's victimization by the red-hunting House Committee on Un-American Activities. Showdown at High Noon is the study of a film caught between popular admiration and critical disdain. In order to understand how and why High Noon has elicited such disparate reactions, author Jeremy Byman explores all of its elements, from its origins in the mind of blacklisted screenwriter Carl Foreman to its long-lasting impact on culture, American and otherwise. High Noon not only affected the westerns that followed it, but also changed filmmaking in fundamental ways. By analyzing its political, cultural, and thematic implications, Byman reveals how this one film has had such a profound and enduring influence, a long lasting impact that cannot be so easily dismissed. Includes 8 pages of photos.
Argues that High Noon was seminal in anticipating the "new," darker Western, and that the film's realist aesthetic was particularly undervalued by auteur critics...fundamentally evaluative...--CHOICE
| Preface | p. xiii |
| Acknowledgments | p. xvii |
| The World of High Noon | |
| Showdown | p. 3 |
| High Noon Enters Popular Legend | p. 17 |
| Independent Production and the Rise of Stanley Kramer | p. 29 |
| The Red Scare and the Blacklist | p. 49 |
| Communism and Conformity | |
| Writing High Noon, Facing the Blacklist | p. 71 |
| The Failed Community | p. 103 |
| Westerns and Anti-Westerns | |
| Formula and Subversion | p. 123 |
| High Noon and the End of the Western | p. 159 |
| Auteurs, Critics, and Collaborative Filmmaking | |
| Auteurs and Westerns | p. 181 |
| The Making of High Noon | p. 207 |
| The Film As Film | |
| A Citizen Named Kane | p. 253 |
| Noir at High Noon | p. 269 |
| Bibliography | p. 295 |
| Index | p. 309 |
| About the Author | p. 315 |
| Table of Contents provided by Rittenhouse. All Rights Reserved. |
ISBN: 9780810849983
ISBN-10: 0810849984
Series: Scarecrow Filmmakers (Paperback)
Audience:
General
Format:
Paperback
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 344
Published: 28th June 2004
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Country of Publication: US
Dimensions (cm): 22.56 x 12.8
x 2.08
Weight (kg): 0.48
