If there were one thing that filmmakers William Castle and Edward D. “Ed” Wood, Jr. had in common, is that both were at the forefront of 1950s low-budget, B-movie filmmaking where independent studios assigned small budget to filmmakers to create B-movies and release them widely in order to gain higher profit returns during release. Both directors enjoyed their creative freedom with their limited budgets and both of their movies showed passion and energy in their scenes that many “A” film struggle to encapsulate in scenes of their own. However, that’s where the similarities end. Wood was an inept filmmaker, cursed with the passion for making movies but lacking the talent to do so, whereas Castle had extensive experience in the past and used them both during production and promoting his films, becoming a charming “showman” of sorts for his own movies. This “showman” persona was the main inspiration and basis for Joe Dante’s “Matinee”, where John Goodman portrayed a Castle-esque showman who would pull off every trick in the book just to get people to watch his any-budget movies, even if it means capitalizing on them during one of the most tension-filled periods in United States history. Though the film is fiction, Castle did indeed do some outrageous marketing stunts to promote his (mostly) low-budget shockers, even up until near the end of his career during his sole attempt into the A-game – producing the Roman Polanski chiller “Rosemary’s Baby”. Castle couldn’t even resist and took advantage of the paranoia between Catholic beliefs at the time when marketing the movie. Of course, this was considered mild by Castle’s usual marketing gimmicks which rightfully earned him the moniker “The King of Gimmicks” . His “showmanship” stemmed ... ... middle of paper ... ...cstasy (The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr.). Feral House. - Law, John W. 2000. Scare Tactic: The Life & Films of William Castle. Lincoln, NE: Writers Club Press. - Schaefer, Eric. 1999. "Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!": A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959. Duke University Press. - Sims, Chris. 2013. "5 Great Moments From the World's Craziest Filmmaker." Cracked.com. July 27. http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-great-moments-from-worlds-craziest-filmmaker/. - Wid's Films and Film Folk, inc. 1946. "Reviews of New Films: "The Mysterious Intruder"." The Film Daily, April - June. - Wid's Films and Film Folk, inc. 1946. "Film Daily Reviews of New Pictures: "Voice of the Whistler"." The Film Daily, January - March. - Wid's Films and Film Folk, Inc. 1948. "Staten Islanders Had Fun With New Golden Comedy: "Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven"." The Film Daily, July - September.
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” University of Florida professor of film studies, Robert Ray, defines two types of heroes pervading American films, the outlaw hero and the official hero. Often the two types are merged in a reconciliatory pattern, he argues. In fact, this
Rabinovitz, Laura. For the Love of Pleasure; Women, Movies and Culture in the Turn-of-the-Centry of Chicago. New Jersey: Rutgers university Press, 1998.
Candyman (1992) directed by Bernard Rose tells the story of a graduate student whose research on urban legends becomes reality and consumes and threatens her life. The viewer of this film is not able to reconcile whether Helen Lyle, the graduate student, or Candyman is the perpetrator of the kidnapping of baby Anthony McCoy, the murder of Helen’s friend and fellow graduate student Bernadette Walsh, or the brutal gutting of Helen’s psychiatrist. Is Candyman real or a figment of Helen’s obsessive research and interest in the legend? This uncertainty roots this film in “the fantastic,” a phenomenon discussed by French theorist, Tzvetan Todorov. Todorov declares “the fantastic” to hinge on “the reader’s hesitation.” In other words, when the viewer has “nearly reached the point of believing” but hesitates, that is when a story becomes fantastic (Todorov 31). This paper will discuss hesitation within the film Candyman. The film’s greatest linchpin to “the fantastic” is the indefinability of Candyman’s monstrosity. Rose’s “monster”
Jacquelyin Kilpatrick , Celluloid Indians. Native Americans and Film. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1999
Jewel, R. B (2007). The Golden Age of Cinema, Hollywood 1929-1940. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. p255.
Classic film noir originated after World War II. This is the time where post World War II pessimism, anxiety, and suspicion was taking the world by storm. Many films that were released in the U.S. Between 1939s and 1940s were considered propaganda films that were designed for entertainment during the Depression and World War II. During the 1930s many German and Europeans immigrated to the U.S. and helped the American film industry with powerf...
The debate over Casablanca and Citizen Kane has been a classic argument between film critics and historians alike because both of these pieces contain great cinematographic value, and are timeless pictures that have managed to captivate audiences well beyond their era. However, the real question at hand is which film is the greatest? Which film transformed the future of American film making? It is these questions that I as many others have, will attempt to answer in the following essay as I explain why I believe Citizen Kane has achieved the status of greatest film ever made.
Relying on the conventions of the silent film era, The Philadelphia Story uses “the expository intertitles to convey crucial information” relevant to the...
Jones, G W. Black Cinema Treasures Lost and Found. Denton: University of North Texas asdfffP, 1991. 129.
Charney, Leo. “Historical Excess: Johnny Guitar's Containment” Cinema Journal 29, No. 4 (1990): 28-30. JSTOR. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
... The Web. 18 Nov. 2011. Dirks, Tim. A. The "Film History of the 1970s.
Williams, Linda. "Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess." Braudy and Cohen (1991 / 2004): 727-41. Print.
In the article “The Thematic Paradigm” exerted from his book, A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, Robert Ray provides a description of the two types of heroes depicted in American film: the outlaw hero and the official hero. Although the outlaw hero is more risky and lonely, he cherishes liberty and sovereignty. The official hero on the other hand, generally poses the role of an average ordinary person, claiming an image of a “civilized person.” While the outlaw hero creates an image of a rough-cut person likely to commit a crime, the official hero has a legend perception. In this essay, I will reflect on Ray’s work, along with demonstrating where I observe ideologies and themes.
Gunning, Tom 2000, “The Cinema of Attraction: Early film, its spectator, and the avant-garde.” Film and theory: An anthology, Robert Stam & Toby Miller, Blackwell, pp 229-235.
Barsam, Richard. Looking at Movies An Introduction to Film, Second Edition (Set with DVD). New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Print.