Overview
- The first major study of the use of the ancient past in the construction of Hollywood stardom after the silent era
- Offers new perspectives on enduringly popular stars such as Greta Garbo and Marilyn Monroe, alongside less well-known films and stars, such as Buster Crabbe and the pre-Code comedy, Search for Beauty (1934)
- Provides a historically rigorous and timely study on the contemporary ancient epic, including discussion of Alexander, Troy, Immortals, and Clash of the Titans, as well as analysis of ‘divinized stardom’ in the digital domain online and in social media
- Presents exhaustive archival research and uses a variety of materials -- ranging from film texts, theory, fine art, fan-magazines, to studio production files and promotional materials
- Brings together a number of fields both within Film Studies (such as cinema history, star and performance studies, set design, memory studies, genre studies), and beyond, in
- cluding Art History, Classical Reception and Gender and Queer Studies
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Rebuilding the Hollywood Pantheon
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Front Matter
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Heroes Will Rise: Patinated Pasts and Digital Futures
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
- Hollywood stars
- antiquity
- Classical Hollywood
- The ancient world
- Greek gods
- framing the past
- Hollywood and the ancient past
- Hollywood and sculpture
- Stardom
- Greta Garbo
- Marilyn Monroe
- Buster Crabbe
- divinized stardom
- Olympian body
- Rita Hayworth
- iconography
- classical reception
- ancient Rome
- ancient Egypt
- ancient Greece
About this book
Case studies include Greta Garbo and Mata Hari (1931); Buster Crabbe and the 1930s Olympian body; the marketing of Rita Hayworth as Venus in the 1940s; sculpture and star performance in Oliver Stone’s Alexander (2004); landscape and sexuality in Troy (2004); digital afterimages of stars such as Marilyn Monroe; and the classical body in the contemporary ancient epic genre. The author’s richly layered ‘archaeological’ approach uses detailed textual analysis and archival research to survey the use of themyth and iconography of ancient Greece and Rome in some of stardom’s most popular and fascinating incarnations.
This interdisciplinary study will be significant for anyone interested in star studies, film and cultural history, and classical reception.
Reviews
“We wish to highlight... the entertaining style of its author and the abundant documentation presented, its multidisciplinary nature, the originality of its approach…[Williams’] readings will undoubtedly illuminate both film scholars in general and specialists in the reception of the Greco-Roman classics.” (Alejandro Valverde Garcia, FILMHISTORIA Online, Volume 28. Nos. 1-2. 2018, 215-216.)
“This beautifully written book develops ideas which Michael Williams’s previous work brought to the attention of scholars in relation to silent Hollywood cinema and classicism, and tackles the perpetuation and persistence of the relationship between film stardom and Olympic ideals. A pleasure to read, this scholarly and authoritative study considers both the flagrant marketing of stars in this context, and more subtle influences which persist in Hollywood to this day.” (Lucy Bolton, Queen Mary University of London)“Williams’ book seriously advances the scholarly study of cinematic stardom. In its emphasis on the connection with the ancient world, it is an original contribution to the exploration of one of film’s most important phenomena, and is hugely eclectic in the range of sources it draws on. I’m sure that the book will be much welcomed in the realms of film scholarship.” (Brian McFarlane, Adjunct Professor at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia)
“Ambitious, groundbreaking, and meticulously researched Williams’ book excavates the classical roots of the ‘new’ gods and goddesses of Hollywood, from the introduction of sound in film to the digitally enhanced cinema of the twenty-first century. Together with his earlier investigation of the silent era (Palgrave: 2013), this volume belongs on the shelves of all those interested in first-class interdisciplinary research and in how the past continuesto interact with and reshape both present and future.” (Anastasia Bakogianni, Lecturer in Classical Studies, Massey University, New Zealand)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Michael Williams is Associate Professor in Film at the University of Southampton, UK. He is the author of Film Stardom, Myth and Classicism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), Ivor Novello (BFI, 2003), and co-editor of British Silent Cinema and the Great War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Film Stardom and the Ancient Past
Book Subtitle: Idols, Artefacts and Epics
Authors: Michael Williams
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39002-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-39001-1Published: 30 January 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-39002-8Published: 13 January 2018
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 311
Number of Illustrations: 5 b/w illustrations, 16 illustrations in colour
Topics: Film Theory, Cultural History, Film History, Arts, Gender Studies, Screen Performance