ABSTRACT

In A Social Cinema: Film-making and Politics in America, Brian Neve presents a study of the social and political nature of American film by concentrating on a generation of writers from the thirties who directed films in Hollywood in the 1940's. He discusses how they negotiated their roles in relation to the studio system, itself undergoing change, and to what extent their experience in the political and theatre movements of thirties New York was to be reflected in their later films.
Focusing in particular on Orson Welles, Elia Kazan, Jules Dassin, Abraham Polonsky, Nicholas Ray, Robert Rossen and Joseph Losey, Neve relates the work of these writers and directors to the broader industrial, bureaucratic, social and political developments of the period 1935-1970. With special emphasis on the post-war decade, bringing together archive and secondary sources, Neve explores a lost tradition of social fimmaking in America.

chapter 1|27 pages

Out of the Thirties

chapter 2|27 pages

Populism, Romanticism and Frank Capra

chapter 3|27 pages

Liberals, Radicals and the Wartime Agenda

chapter 4|27 pages

Post-War Hollywood

chapter 5|32 pages

Post-War: New Directors and Structures

chapter 6|26 pages

Film Noir and Society

chapter 7|39 pages

Into the Fifties

chapter 8|26 pages

The Sixties