Guy Barefoot

Gaslight Melodrama (eBook, PDF)

From Victorian London to 1940s Hollywood

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

In 1945, a year when American crime films were apparently moving out on to the streets of contemporary Los Angeles and New York, one reviewer noted the emergence of a 'cycle of mystery and horror pictures placed in the gaslight era of the turn of the century.' For another critic, it seemed that for Hollywood there was 'no world of today save the world of London by gaslight'.

In Gaslight Melodrama, Guy Barefoot examines the films that gave rise to such comments, and the pattern of discourse that gave rise to such films. The book's main focus is provided by 1940s Hollywood melodramas such as Gaslight, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Hangover Square. It also discusses a related cycle of British films that located murder and melodrama in Victorian or Edwardian settings, and then looks beyond cinema to the Gothic novels of the 18th century, 19th century discussions of gas lighting in street, home and theatre, and ambivalent 20th century responses to the Victorian era. Combining close analysis of particular film texts with attention to cinema's cultural context, Gaslight Melodrama provides an exploration of the ways in which the past has been the site of contested meaning, and an examination of the network of melodramatic narratives embedded within familiar and lesser-known examples of classical Hollywood cinema.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK eBooks
• Seitenzahl: 240
• Erscheinungstermin: 6. Oktober 2016
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781474290364
• Artikelnr.: 45699527

Autorenporträt

Guy Barefoot is Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Leicester, UK, where he was Associate Professor in Film Studies until 2022