Skyscraper cinema : architecture and gender in American film / / Merrill Schleier

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910826712203321
• Autore: Schleier Merrill
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Minneapolis, : University of Minnesota Press, c2009
• ISBN: 0-8166-6623-7
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (388 p.)
• Disciplina: 791.43656; 791.43657
• Soggetti: Skyscrapers in motion pictures; Sex role in motion pictures; Masculinity in motion pictures; Social classes in motion pictures; Motion pictures - United States - History - 20th century
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. 283-344) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Introduction: Constructing the American skyscraper film -- From stumbling blocks to stepping stones : Harold Lloyd's skyscraper films -- Icons of exploitation : gender and class disharmony in the Depression-era skyscraper office -- Masculine heroes, modernism, and political ideology in The fountainhead and The big clock -- Mid-century corporate renewal and gender realignment in Executive suite and Desk set -- Postscript: Recent skyscraper films.
• Sommario/riassunto: Whether tall office buildings, high-rise apartments, or lofty hotels, skyscrapers have been stars in American cinema since the silent era. Cinema's tall buildings have been variously represented as unbridled aspiration, dens of iniquity and eroticism, beacons of democracy, and well-oiled corporate machines. Considering their intriguing diversity, Merrill Schleier establishes and explains the impact of actual skyscrapers on America's ideologies about work, leisure, romance, sexual identity, and politics as seen in Hollywood movies. Schleier analyzes cinematic works in which skyscrapers are an i