'How’s your sense of direction?' Using movie magazines to study audiences’ perception of classical Hollywood directors, 1934-1943

Topp, Dominic (2020) 'How’s your sense of direction?' Using movie magazines to study audiences’ perception of classical Hollywood directors, 1934-1943. In, Biltereyst, Daniel and Van de Vijver, Lies (eds.) Mapping Movie Magazines: Digitization, Periodicals and Cinema History. (Global Cinema) 1 ed. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 257-278. (doi:10.1007/978-3-030-33277-8_13).

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of the Media History Digital Library in a research project investigating the public perception of film directors in the classical Hollywood era. By analyzing data drawn from three fan magazines (Hollywood, Modern Screen and Photoplay) for the period 1934–1943, important insights can be gained into the reputation of specific directors among audiences, as well as what spectators understood the director’s job to consist of. Dominic Topp argues that it can be seen that the reputations of some directors who were known to contemporary audiences have diminished over the years, partly as a result of their omission from the canon of auteurs, which was established in the 1950s and is still extremely influential today.

This record has no associated files available for download.

Contributors

Author: Dominic Topp

Download statistics