Directed by Dorothy Arzner / Edition 1

by Judith Mayne

Overview

Dorothy Arzner was the exception in Hollywood film history—the one woman who succeeded as a director, in a career that spanned three decades. In Part One, Dorothy Arzner's film career—her work as a film editor to her directorial debut, to her departure from Hollywood in 1943—is documented, with particular attention to Arzner's roles as "star-maker" and "woman's director." In Part Two, Mayne analyzes a number of Arzner's films and discusses how feminist preoccupations shape them, from the women's communities central to Dance, Girl, Dance and The Wild Party to critiques of the heterosexual couple in Christopher Strong and Craig's Wife. Part Three treats Arzner's lesbianism and the role that desire between women played in her career, her life, and her films.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253208965
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	01/22/1995
Series:	Women Artists in Film Series
Pages:	210
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

JUDITH MAYNE, Professor of French and Women's Studies at Ohio State University, is the author of Cinema and Spectatorship, The Woman at the Keyhole, Kino and the Woman Question: Feminism and Soviet Silent Film, and Private Novels, Public Films.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part I
The Cinderella Girl of the Movies

1. Apprenticeship
2. Successes and Failures
3. The Independent
4. After Hollywood

Part II
Films for Women Made by Women

5. Working Girls

6. Odd Couples

7. Dance, Girls, Dance

Part III
Girl Director Sets New Standards of Beauty

8. Looking for Dorothy

Conclusion: Lesbian Detection

Notes
Filmography
Index