|
Showing 1 - 12 of
12 matches in All Departments
From 1989 through 2002 there was an unprecedented surge in American
sitcoms featuring explicitly, Jewish lead characters, 32 compared
to seven in the previous 40 years. Several of these ""Mad About
You"", ""The Nanny"" and ""Friends"" - were among the most popular
and influential of all shows over this period; one programme -
""Seinfeld"" - has been singled out as the ""defining"" series of
the 90s. In addition, scriptwriters have increasingly created
""Jewish"" characters, although they may not be perceived to be by
the show's audience. Rachel Green on ""Friends"" being only one
example. Here, Vincent Brook asks two key questions: why has this
trend appeared at this particular historical moment and what is the
significance of this phenomenon for Jews and non-Jews alike? He
takes readers through three key phases of the Jewish sitcom trend:
the early years of televisions before and after the first Jewish
sitcom, ""The Goldbergs"", appeared; the second phase in which
America found itself ""Under the Sign of Seinfeld""; and the
current era of what Brook calls ""post-Jewishness"". Interviews
with key writers, producers and showrunners such as David Kohan
(""Will and Grace""), Marta Kauffman (""Friends"" and ""Dream
On""), Bill Prady (Dharma and Greg""), Peter Mehlman and Carol
Leifer (""Seinfeld""),and close readings of individual episodes and
series provoke the conclusion that we have entered uncharted
""post-Jewish"" territory. The rise of the Jewish sitcom represents
a broader struggle in which American Jews and the TV industry, if
not American society as a whole, are increasingly operating at
cross-purposes - torn between the desire to celebrate unique ethnic
identities, yet to assimilate; to assert independence, yet also to
build a consensus to appeal to the widest possible audience.
Originally and it may still be] a-work-in-progress... Yet, I have
decided to move beyond the comfort of my computer and four little
walls of an apartment, and share a labor of love that has taken me
twenty-five years to bring out of the closet so too speak. So pull
out those old LP's or CD's of a lil Coltrane, Carol Sloane, Shirley
Horn, Miles Davis and of course Lady Day. And for all of you new
kids on the block, Jill Scott, Remy Shand and Ledisi Young, too So
light some aroma-therapy candles, burn some incense and then allow
me to transport you back to a time of growth for some and a
revelation for others, for I am the product of: the Civil Rights
era/the BEATLES/the SUPREMES/ both the Korean/& VIETNAM
wars/the1963 march on Washington...
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This
IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced
typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have
occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor
pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original
artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe
this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections,
have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing
commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We
appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the
preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
Although Woody Allen's films have received extensive attention from
scholars and critics, no book has focused exclusively on Jewishness
in his work, particularly that of the late 1990s and beyond. In
this anthology, a distinguished group of contributors--whose work
is richly contextualized in the fields of literature, philosophy,
film, theater, and comedy--examine the schlemiel, Allen and women,
the Jewish take on the "morality of murder," Allen's take on Hebrew
scripture and Greek tragedy, his stage work, his cinematic
treatment of food and dining, and what happens to "Jew York" when
Woody takes his films out of New York City. Considered together,
these essays delineate the intellectual, artistic, and moral
development of one of cinema's most durable and controversial
directors.
Unlike the more forthrightly mythic origins of other urban
centers—think Rome via Romulus and Remus or Mexico City via the
god Huitzilopochtli—Los Angeles emerged from a smoke-and-mirrors
process that is simultaneously literal and figurative, real and
imagined, material and metaphorical, physical and textual. Through
penetrating analysis and personal engagement, Vincent Brook
uncovers the many portraits of this ever-enticing, ever-ambivalent,
and increasingly multicultural megalopolis. Divided into sections
that probe Los Angeles’s checkered history and reflect on
Hollywood’s own self-reflections, the book shows how the city,
despite considerable remaining challenges, is finally
blowing away some of the smoke of its not always proud past and
rhetorically adjusting its rear-view mirrors. Part I is a review of
the city’s history through the early 1900s, focusing on the
seminal 1884 novel Ramona and its immediate effect, but also
exploring its ongoing impact through interviews with present-day
Tongva Indians, attendance at the 88th annual Ramona pageant, and
analysis of its feature film adaptations. Brook deals with
Hollywood as geographical site, film production center, and frame
of mind in Part II. He charts the events leading up to
Hollywood’s emergence as the world’s movie capital and explores
subsequent developments of the film industry from its golden age
through the so-called New Hollywood, citing such self-reflexive
films as Sunset Blvd.,Singin’ in the Rain, and The Truman Show.
Part III considers LA noir, a subset of film noir that emerged
alongside the classical noir cycle in the 1940s and 1950s and
continues today. The city’s status as a privileged noir site is
analyzed in relation to its history and through discussions of such
key LA noir novels and films as Double Indemnity, Chinatown, and
Crash. In Part IV, Brook examines multicultural Los Angeles. Using
media texts as signposts, he maps the history and contemporary
situation of the city’s major ethno-racial and other minority
groups, looking at such films as Mi Familia (Latinos), Boyz N the
Hood (African Americans), Charlotte Sometimes (Asians), Falling
Down (Whites), and The Kids Are All Right (LGBT).
From its earliest days, the American film industry has attracted
European artists. With the rise of Hitler, filmmakers of conscience
in Germany and other countries, particularly those of Jewish
origin, found it difficult to survive and fled--for their work and
their lives--to the United States. Some had trouble adapting to
Hollywood, but many were celebrated for their cinematic
contributions, especially to the dark shadows of film noir.
"Driven to Darkness" explores the influence of Jewish emigre
directors and the development of this genre. While filmmakers such
as Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, and Edward G. Ulmer
have been acknowledged as crucial to the noir canon, the impact of
their Jewishness on their work has remained largely unexamined
until now. Through lively and original analyses of key films,
Vincent Brook penetrates the darkness, shedding new light on this
popular film form and the artists who helped create it.
|
|