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Dying Swans and Madmen
Ballet, the Body, and Narrative Cinema
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2008
About this book
From mid-twentieth-century films such as Grand Hotel, Waterloo Bridge, and The Red Shoes to recent box-office hits including Billy Elliot, Save the Last Dance, and The Company, ballet has found its way, time and again, onto the silver screen and into the hearts of many otherwise unlikely audiences. In Dying Swans and Madmen, Adrienne L. McLean explores the curious pairing of classical and contemporary, art and entertainment, high culture and popular culture to reveal the ambivalent place that this art form occupies in American life.
Drawing on examples that range from musicals to tragic melodramas, she shows how commercial films have produced an image of ballet and its artists that is associated both with joy, fulfillment, fame, and power and with sexual and mental perversity, melancholy, and death. Although ballet is still received by many with a lack of interest or outright suspicion, McLean argues that these attitudes as well as ballet's popularity and its acceptability as a way of life and a profession have often depended on what audiences first learned about it from the movies.
Drawing on examples that range from musicals to tragic melodramas, she shows how commercial films have produced an image of ballet and its artists that is associated both with joy, fulfillment, fame, and power and with sexual and mental perversity, melancholy, and death. Although ballet is still received by many with a lack of interest or outright suspicion, McLean argues that these attitudes as well as ballet's popularity and its acceptability as a way of life and a profession have often depended on what audiences first learned about it from the movies.
Author / Editor information
Adrienne L. McLean is a professor of film studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is the author of numerous books, including Being Rita Hayworth: Labor, Identity, and Hollywood Stardom (Rutgers University Press).
Reviews
Aside from cataloguing, describing, and closely reading the plethora of films that comprise the group with which she is concerned, McLean surfaces interesting theoretical issues concerning the genre. This is a unique and original project.
— Lucy Fischer, University of PittsburghThis is a superb and wonderfully readable work, a true contribution to the fields of both cinema studies and dance.
— Karen Backstein, CineasteTopics
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Frontmatter
i -
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CONTENTS
vii -
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ix -
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Introduction
1 -
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1. A Channel for Progress
34 -
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2. The Lot of a Ballerina Is Indeed Tough
62 -
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3. The Man Was Mad—But a Genius!
104 -
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4. If You Can Disregard the Plot
133 -
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5. The Second Act Will Be Quite Different
172 -
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6. Turning Points
215 -
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NOTES
259 -
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FILMOGRAPHY
291 -
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INDEX
297
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
September 23, 2019
eBook ISBN:
9780813544670
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9780813544670
Keywords for this book
Dying Swans and Madmen; Ballet; the Body; and Narrative Cinema; Adrienne L. McLean; film studies; ballet; dance; cinema; Grand Hotel; Waterloo Bridge; The Red Shoes; Billy Elliot; Save the Last Dance; The Company; silver screen; classical; contemporary; art; entertainment; high culture; popular culture; American life; ballerina; art form; musicals; tragic melodramas; commercial films; image of ballet; ballet image; ballet artists; joy; fulfillment; fame; power; sexual perversity; mental perversity; melancholy; death; ballet's popularity; ballet's acceptability; way of life; profession; dancer
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
