This book provides an in-depth study of Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine, Kim Novak and Meryl Streep, and the treatment of adultery in their films. It avoids the near-impossible challenge of writing about the sheer volume of adultery in film by focusing on specific periods in the work of these four major Hollywood actresses who have each performed roles that share some features but also contain points of difference. The periods discussed cover Davis's work in 1937 to 1943, Fontaine's work between 1939 and 1950, Novak in 1954 to 1964, and finally Streep's work between 1979 and 1985. Closely analysing both established classics and lesser known films, Edward Gallafent explores the work of a broad range of directors including Alfred Hitchcock, Max Ophuls, Sydney Pollack and Billy Wilder. Adultery and the Female Star explores topics such as motherhood, the significance of place, censorship, and adaptation, and is the first book of its kind to take on the topic of adultery in relation to these four actresses. It ultimately argues that our understanding of the adultery narrative is tightly bound up with our understanding of the Hollywood stars that depict it.

Quentin Tarantino is one of the best-known living American filmmakers in the world, and the story of his career has been the subject of a number of books and articles. But what do his films mean? In this new study, Edward Gallafent does not look at Tarantino's story but at the films themselves. He asks to what extent Tarantino can be seen as a specifically American filmmaker, with the kinds of preoccupations and interests that have formed part of Hollywood's traditions, and also how he explores the expressive possibilities of current cinema. The book concentrates on the main feature films of Tarantino's career so far: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and the two volumes of Kill Bill. Apart from Kill Bill the films are not treated individually, but in terms of some of the subjects that connect them together, such as success and tradition, their notorious deployment of violence, and Tarantino's approach to story-telling: his interest in presenting events out of chronological order. The book also covers adaptations of Tarantino's work, looking at the screenplays of True Romance and Natural Born Killers as well as the films made from them, and compares Tarantino's approach to adapting Elmore Leonard with that of another important American filmmaker, Paul Schrader. The aim of the book is to explore these topics and to take the reader back to what the American critic Robert Warshow called the 'actual, immediate experience of seeing and responding to the movies'. It is designed to appeal both to those who were excited by the films on first seeing them in the cinema and to those taking the opportunity of reconsidering them on the screen or on DVD.

This book offers a comprehensive scholarly examination of Vincente Minnelli, one of American cinema's central filmmakers.Widely known for innovative films like ""Meet Me in St. Louis"", ""An American in Paris"", and ""The Band Wagon"", Vincente Minnelli also directed classic film comedies like ""Father of the Bride"" and ""Designing Woman"", and melodramas such as ""The Bad and the Beautiful"" and ""Some Came Running"". Though his work is beloved by filmmakers and audiences alike, Minnelli has nonetheless received very little critical attention in English. ""Vincente Minnelli: The Art of Entertainment"" remedies this imbalance, offering the first-ever comprehensive and scholarly examination of Minnelli's career within a variety of discourses and methods.Bringing together a number of previously uncollected and untranslated essays by some of the most important scholars and critics in North America, Australia, and Europe, ""Vincente Minnelli: The Art of Entertainment"" places Minnelli's cinema in its rightful position at the forefront of film history. In essays written over the last five decades, as well as a number of new essays commissioned especially for this volume, contributors consider Minnelli from a number of perspectives from auteurism to genre studies and psychoanalysis to close textual analysis.The volume is divided into four chronological sections, Minnelli in the 1960s: The Rise and Fall of an Auteur; The 1970s and 1980s: Genre, Psychoanalysis, and Close Readings; The 1990s: Matters of History, Culture, and Sexuality; and, Minnelli Today: The Return of the Artist. An introduction by Joe McElhaney addresses the history of the reception of Minnelli's films, situating this reception within larger questions of film theory, criticism, and aesthetics.Too often dismissed as little more than a stylist dependent on the resources of the studio system and the structures of genre, Vincente Minnelli deserves a second look from serious film scholars. ""Vincente Minnelli: The Art of Entertainment"" demonstrates the remarkable and sustained rigor of Minnelli's vision and will appeal to students and teachers of film studies as well as fans of Minnelli's work.

Quentin Tarantino is one of the best-known living American filmmakers in the world, and the story of his career has been the subject of a number of books and articles. But what do his films mean? In this new study, Edward Gallafent does not look at Tarantino's story but at the films themselves. He asks to what extent Tarantino can be seen as a specifically American filmmaker, with the kinds of preoccupations and interests that have formed part of Hollywood's traditions, and also how he explores the expressive possibilities of current cinema. The book concentrates on the main feature films of Tarantino's career so far: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and the two volumes of Kill Bill. Apart from Kill Bill the films are not treated individually, but in terms of some of the subjects that connect them together, such as success and tradition, their notorious deployment of violence, and Tarantino's approach to story-telling: his interest in presenting events out of chronological order. The book also covers adaptations of Tarantino's work, looking at the screenplays of True Romance and Natural Born Killers as well as the films made from them, and compares Tarantino's approach to adapting Elmore Leonard with that of another important American filmmaker, Paul Schrader. The aim of the book is to explore these topics and to take the reader back to what the American critic Robert Warshow called the 'actual, immediate experience of seeing and responding to the movies'. It is designed to appeal both to those who were excited by the films on first seeing them in the cinema and to those taking the opportunity of reconsidering them on the screen or on DVD.