Edna Ferber's Hollywood : American fictions of gender, race, and history

Bibliographic Information

Edna Ferber's Hollywood : American fictions of gender, race, and history

J.E. Smyth ; foreword by Thomas Schatz

(Texas film and media studies series)

University of Texas Press, 2010

1st ed

  • : pbk

Available at  / 4 libraries

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [305]-324) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

ISBN 9780292719842

Description

Edna Ferber's Hollywood reveals one of the most influential artistic relationships of the twentieth century-the four-decade partnership between historical novelist Edna Ferber and the Hollywood studios. Ferber was one of America's most controversial popular historians, a writer whose uniquely feminist, multiracial view of the national past deliberately clashed with traditional narratives of white masculine power. Hollywood paid premium sums to adapt her novels, creating some of the most memorable films of the studio era-among them Show Boat, Cimarron, and Giant. Her historical fiction resonated with Hollywood's interest in prestigious historical filmmaking aimed principally, but not exclusively, at female audiences. In Edna Ferber's Hollywood, J. E. Smyth explores the research, writing, marketing, reception, and production histories of Hollywood's Ferber franchise. Smyth tracks Ferber's working relationships with Samuel Goldwyn, Leland Hayward, George Stevens, and James Dean; her landmark contract negotiations with Warner Bros.; and the controversies surrounding Giant's critique of Jim-Crow Texas. But Edna Ferber's Hollywood is also the study of the historical vision of an American outsider-a woman, a Jew, a novelist with few literary pretensions, an unashamed middlebrow who challenged the prescribed boundaries among gender, race, history, and fiction. In a masterful film and literary history, Smyth explores how Ferber's work helped shape Hollywood's attitude toward the American past.

Table of Contents

* Foreword by Thomas Schatz * Acknowledgments * Chapter One. Edna Ferber's America and the Fictions of History * Chapter Two. The Life of an Unknown Woman: So Big, 1923-1953 * Chapter Three. Making Believe: Show Boat, Race, and Romance, 1925-1957 * Chapter Four. Cimarron: Marking the Boundaries of Classical Hollywood's Rise and Fall, 1928-1961 * Chapter Five. Writing for Hollywood: Come and Get It and Saratoga Trunk, 1933-1947 * Chapter Six. Jim Crow, Jett Rink, and James Dean: Reconstructing Giant, 1952-1957 * Chapter Seven. The New Nationalism in Ice Palace, 1954-1960 * Notes * Selected Bibliography * Index
Volume

: pbk ISBN 9780292725638

Description

Edna Ferber's Hollywood reveals one of the most influential artistic relationships of the twentieth century-the four-decade partnership between historical novelist Edna Ferber and the Hollywood studios. Ferber was one of America's most controversial popular historians, a writer whose uniquely feminist, multiracial view of the national past deliberately clashed with traditional narratives of white masculine power. Hollywood paid premium sums to adapt her novels, creating some of the most memorable films of the studio era-among them Show Boat, Cimarron, and Giant. Her historical fiction resonated with Hollywood's interest in prestigious historical filmmaking aimed principally, but not exclusively, at female audiences. In Edna Ferber's Hollywood, J. E. Smyth explores the research, writing, marketing, reception, and production histories of Hollywood's Ferber franchise. Smyth tracks Ferber's working relationships with Samuel Goldwyn, Leland Hayward, George Stevens, and James Dean; her landmark contract negotiations with Warner Bros.; and the controversies surrounding Giant's critique of Jim-Crow Texas. But Edna Ferber's Hollywood is also the study of the historical vision of an American outsider-a woman, a Jew, a novelist with few literary pretensions, an unashamed middlebrow who challenged the prescribed boundaries among gender, race, history, and fiction. In a masterful film and literary history, Smyth explores how Ferber's work helped shape Hollywood's attitude toward the American past.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Thomas Schatz Acknowledgments Chapter One. Edna Ferber's America and the Fictions of History Chapter Two. The Life of an Unknown Woman: So Big, 1923-1953 Chapter Three. Making Believe: Show Boat, Race, and Romance, 1925-1957 Chapter Four. Cimarron: Marking the Boundaries of Classical Hollywood's Rise and Fall, 1928-1961 Chapter Five. Writing for Hollywood: Come and Get It and Saratoga Trunk, 1933-1947 Chapter Six. Jim Crow, Jett Rink, and James Dean: Reconstructing Giant, 1952-1957 Chapter Seven. The New Nationalism in Ice Palace, 1954-1960 Notes Selected Bibliography Index

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