What do you think?
Rate this book
Creating the Couple: Love, Marriage, and Hollywood Performance
Who decides how, when, and where Americans fall in love and get married? Virginia Wexman's acute observations about movie stars and acting techniques show that Hollywood has often had the most powerful voice in demonstrating socially sanctioned ways of becoming a couple. Until now serious film critics have paid little attention to the impact of performance styles on American romance, and have often treated "patriarchy," "sexuality," and the "couple" as monolithic and unproblematic concepts. Wexman, however, shows how these notions have been periodically transformed in close association with the appearance, behavior, and persona of the stars of films such as The Maltese Falcon , The Big Sleep , Way Down East , The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance , Sunset Boulevard , On the Waterfront , Nashville , House of Games , and Do the Right Thing .
The author focuses first on the way in which traditional marriage norms relate to authorship (the Griffith-Gish collaboration) and genre (John Wayne and the Western). Looking at male and female stardom in terms of the development of "companionate marriage," she discusses the love goddess and the impact of method acting on Hollywood's ideals of maleness. Finally she considers the recent breakdown of the ideal of monogamous marriage in relation to Hollywood's experimentation with self-reflexive acting styles. Creating the Couple is must reading for film scholars and enthusiasts, and it will fascinate everyone interested in the changing relationships of men and women in modern culture.
The author focuses first on the way in which traditional marriage norms relate to authorship (the Griffith-Gish collaboration) and genre (John Wayne and the Western). Looking at male and female stardom in terms of the development of "companionate marriage," she discusses the love goddess and the impact of method acting on Hollywood's ideals of maleness. Finally she considers the recent breakdown of the ideal of monogamous marriage in relation to Hollywood's experimentation with self-reflexive acting styles. Creating the Couple is must reading for film scholars and enthusiasts, and it will fascinate everyone interested in the changing relationships of men and women in modern culture.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
1 person is currently reading
11 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 29, 2017
A nonfiction piece that gets into how, when, and even where Americans have historically tended to fall in love and marry and the movie industry's influence on all that. Wexman's cinematic points of reference span from the origins of the film industry up to more modern examples, using them to look how we as a nation can be subliminally influenced in our day to day by the movies we love.
Sounds like kind of a fascinating topic, right?! Yeah, I thought so too! And maybe so in the hands of a writer with a stronger storyteller gene. I ended up actually finding this not all that interesting -- not sure if it was the examples she uses or her writing style itself, or a combination -- but this cinema buff found this one kinda dull. Also found the feminist lean a little tiresome after awhile.
Sounds like kind of a fascinating topic, right?! Yeah, I thought so too! And maybe so in the hands of a writer with a stronger storyteller gene. I ended up actually finding this not all that interesting -- not sure if it was the examples she uses or her writing style itself, or a combination -- but this cinema buff found this one kinda dull. Also found the feminist lean a little tiresome after awhile.
Displaying 1 of 1 review