Research Catalog

Sternberg and Dietrich : the phenomenology of spectacle

Title
Sternberg and Dietrich : the phenomenology of spectacle / James Phillips.
Author
Phillips, James, 1970-
Publication
  • New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019]
  • ©2019

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TextUse in library MWES (Von Sternberg, J.) 19-2702Performing Arts Research Collections - Theatre

Details

Description
125 pages : illustrations; 25 cm
Summary
James Phillips's Sternberg and Dietrich: The Phenomenology of Spectacle reappraises the cinematic collaboration between the Austrian-American filmmaker Josef von Sternberg (1894-1969) and the German-American actor Marlene Dietrich (1901-92). Considered by his contemporaries one of the most significant directors of interwar Hollywood, Sternberg made seven films with Dietrich that helped establish her as a style icon and star and entrenched his own reputation for extravagance and aesthetic spectacle. These films enriched the technical repertoire of the industry, challenged the sexual mores of the times and notoriously tried the patience of management at Paramount Studios. Sternberg and Dietrich: The Phenomenology of Spectacle demonstrates how under Sternberg's direction Paramount's sound stages became laboratories for novel thought experiments. Analysing in depth the last four films on which Sternberg and Dietrich worked together, Phillips reconstructs the "cinematic philosophy" that Sternberg claimed for himself in his autobiography and for whose fullest expression Dietrich was indispensable. This book makes a case for the originality and perceptiveness with which these films treat such issues as the nature of trust, the status of appearance, the standing of women, the ethics and politics of the image, and the relationship between cinema and the world. Sternberg and Dietrich: The Phenomenology of Spectacle reveals that more is at stake in these films than the showcasing of a new star and the confectionery of glamour: Dietrich emerges here as a woman who is at ease in the world without being at home in it, an image of autonomy whose critical potential has yet to be realized, let alone exhausted.
Subjects
Genre/Form
  • Biographies.
  • Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages [117]-120) and index.
Contents
Introduction: Dietrich's face and the talking picture -- Shanghai express: making room for faith in appearances -- Blonde Venus: a sale of two bodies -- The scarlet empress: history as farce -- The devil is a woman: against the off-screen -- Conclusion: towards an ethics of the moving image.
Call Number
MWES (Von Sternberg, J.) 19-2702
ISBN
  • 9780190915247
  • 0190915242
  • 9780190915254 (updf) (canceled/invalid)
  • 9780190915261 (epub) (canceled/invalid)
LCCN
  • 2018019850
  • 40028928507
OCLC
1035251892
Author
Phillips, James, 1970- author.
Title
Sternberg and Dietrich : the phenomenology of spectacle / James Phillips.
Publisher
New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019]
Copyright Date
©2019
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages [117]-120) and index.
Other Form:
Online version: Phillips, James, 1970- Sternberg and Dietrich. New York City : Oxford University Press, 2019 9780190915254 (DLC) 2018021766
Other Standard Identifier
40028928507
Research Call Number
MWES (Von Sternberg, J.) 19-2702
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