Famous Faces Yet Not Themselves: The Misfits and Icons of Postwar America

Description

Just as the industrial context of film production evolved dramatically in the decades after the war, Kouvaros asserts, so too did the iconography associated with the figure of the actor. Photographs of Hollywood stars such as Monroe, Gable, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, and Humphrey Bogart form the basis of an evocative analysis of the way photography gave shape to fundamental shifts in the nature of screen acting, perceptions of celebrity, and the relationship between actor and audience.

George Kouvaros is associate professor of film in the School of English, Media, and Performing Arts at the University of New South Wales. He is author of Where Does It Happen? John Cassavetes and Cinema at the Breaking Point (Minnesota, 2004).