Shot on Location: Postwar American Cinema and the Exploration of Real Place

R. Barton Palmer

Published by Rutgers University Press 2016

Shot on Location

Postwar American Cinema and the Exploration of Real Place

R. Barton Palmer

In the series Techniques of the Moving Image

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813564104

Overview
Contents

About this book

In the early days of filmmaking, before many of Hollywood’s elaborate sets and soundstages had been built, it was common for movies to be shot on location. Decades later, Hollywood filmmakers rediscovered the practice of using real locations and documentary footage in their narrative features. Why did this happen? What caused this sudden change?

Renowned film scholar R. Barton Palmer answers this question in Shot on Location by exploring the historical, ideological, economic, and technological developments that led Hollywood to head back outside in order to capture footage of real places. His groundbreaking research reveals that wartime newsreels had a massive influence on postwar Hollywood film, although there are key distinctions to be made between these movies and their closest contemporaries, Italian neorealist films. Considering how these practices were used in everything from war movies like Twelve O’Clock High to westerns like The Searchers, Palmer explores how the blurring of the formal boundaries between cinematic journalism and fiction lent a “reality effect” to otherwise implausible stories.

Shot on Location describes how the period’s greatest directors, from Alfred Hitchcock to Billy Wilder, increasingly moved beyond the confines of the studio. At the same time, the book acknowledges the collaborative nature of moviemaking, identifying key roles that screenwriters, art designers, location scouts, and editors played in incorporating actual geographical locales and social milieus within a fictional framework. Palmer thus offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how Hollywood transformed the way we view real spaces.

Author / Editor information

R. BARTON PALMER is the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature and the director of film studies at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. He is the author or editor of more than thirty-five books, including Larger than Life: Movie Stars of the 1950s (with Murray Pomerance), “A Little Solitaire”: John Frankenheimer and American Film (with Murray Pomerance), and Thinking in the Dark: Cinema, Theory, Practice with Murray Pomerance (all by Rutgers University Press).

Reviews

"Like the tenacious investigators of the post-war semi-documentaries he analyzes (among many other genres and films), Palmer delivers a probing, conceptually sophisticated, multi-faceted, sensitively written account of Hollywood’s return to location shooting. A major achievement that overturns the historical consensus."

— Matthew Bernstein, author of Walter Wanger, Hollywood Independent

“A tremendously important advance in our understanding of landscape, cityscape, and place in postwar American cinema, among the most innovative current work in film and media studies, American studies, English literature, and cultural geography.”

— Mark Shiel, author of Hollywood Cinema and the Real Los Angeles

"Shot on Location provides clear evidence that Hollywood's approach to location shooting was in many ways influenced by Europe both in the philosophy of the filmmakers and in the strategies through which the footage was used to add a sense of authenticity....Shot on Location is a worthy contribution to film history, as it furthers the connections between disparate but exciting facets of film history."

— The Velvet Light Trap

"A well-documented, clearly written study that enhances understanding of an important trend that still resonates today… Recommended."

— Choice

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
Introduction: Real History, Real Cinema Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Filming The Transitory World We Live In Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
2. The Postwar Turn Toward The Real Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	44
3. Of Backdrops And Place: The Searchers And Sunset Blvd Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
4. An American Neorealism? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	106
5. Noir On Location Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	146
6. The Legacies Of The Ramparts We Watch Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	180
Conclusion: Authentic Banality? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
About The Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 270
Illustrations
- Other: 31 photographs

eBook

Published: February 18, 2016
ISBN: 9780813564104