Greta Garbo proclaimed him as her favorite director. Actors, actresses, and even child stars were so at ease under his direction that they were able to deliver inspired and powerful performances. Academy–Award–nominated director Clarence Brown (1890–1987) worked with some of Hollywood’s greatest stars, such as Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Mickey Rooney, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy. Known as the ‘star maker, ‘ he helped guide the acting career of child sensation Elizabeth Taylor (of whom he once said, ‘she has a face that is an act of God’) and discovered Academy–Award–winning child star Claude Jarman Jr. for The Yearling (1946). He directed more than fifty films, including Possessed (1931), Anna Karenina (1935), National Velvet (1944), and Intruder in the Dust (1949), winning his audiences over with glamorous star vehicles, tales of families, communities, and slices of Americana, as well as hard-hitting dramas. Although Brown was admired by peers like Jean Renoir, Frank Capra, and John Ford, his illuminating work and contributions to classic cinema are rarely mentioned in the same breath as those of Hollywood’s great directors.
In this first full-length account of the life and career of the pioneering filmmaker, Gwenda Young discusses Brown’s background to show how his hardworking parents and resilient grandparents inspired his entrepreneurial spirit. She reveals how the one–time engineer and World War I aviator established a thriving car dealership, the Brown Motor Car Company, in Alabama—only to give it all up to follow his dream of making movies. He would not only become a brilliant director but also a craftsman who was known for his innovative use of lighting and composition.
In a career spanning five decades, Brown was nominated for five Academy Awards and directed ten different actors in Oscar-nominated performances. Despite his achievements and influence, however, Brown has been largely overlooked by film scholars. Clarence Brown: Hollywood’s Forgotten Master explores the forces that shaped a complex man—part–dreamer, part–pragmatist—who left an indelible mark on cinema.
สารบัญ
Foreword, by Kevin Brownlow
Preface
1. A Brown Boy
2. The Master’s Apprentice
3. Brown Goes to War…and Returns to Tourneur
4. Striking Out: The Light in the Dark and Don’t Marry for Money
5. Early Years at Universal
6. Brown and the Universal Women
7. Brown at United Artists
8. Brown Meets Garbo: Flesh and the Devil
9. On the Trail of ’98
10. An ‘Uplifting’ Film: Adapting The Green Hat
11. Transition to Sound: Wonder of Women and Navy Blues
12. A Year with Garbo
13. Starmaker
14. Devotion and Deceit: Emma and Letty Lynton
15. Service and Passion
16. Back with Crawford
17. Reunited: Garbo, Brown, and Anna Karenina
18. Going Home: Ah Wilderness!
19. Back to the Formual: Wife vs. Secretary, The Gorgeous Hussy, and Love on the Run
20. Conquest
21. A Little Piece of Humanity: Of Human Hearts
22. Foreign Affairs: Idiot’s Delight and The Rains came
23. Inventions and Conventions: Edison the Man, Come Live with Me, and They Met in Bombay
24. Representing the War Front at Home and Away: The Human Comedy and The White Cliffs of Dover
25. Velvet and Pie: National Velvet
26. A Year with The Yearling
27. Songs and the South: Song of Love and Intruder in the Dust
28. The Twilight of a Career
29. Slow Fade-out: Brown in Retirement
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
เกี่ยวกับผู้แต่ง
Gwenda Young is a professor of film history and lecturer in film studies at University College, Cork, Ireland. She is the author of numerous articles about film history, including three articles about Clarence Brown, and co-editor of two books of critical essays. In 2003, along with Kevin Brownlow, she curated a retrospective of Brown’s films at the National Film Theatre, London.
หนังสืออิเล็กทรอนิกส์เพิ่มเติมจากผู้แต่งคนเดียวกัน / บรรณาธิการ
47,127 หนังสืออิเล็กทรอนิกส์ในหมวดหมู่นี้
