1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910963526303321

Autore

Beach Christopher

Titolo

The films of Hal Ashby / / Christopher Beach

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Detroit, : Wayne State University Press, c2009

ISBN

9780814335420

081433542X

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (206 p.)

Collana

Contemporary approaches to film and television series

Disciplina

791.4302/33092

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Filmography: p. [173]-179.

Nota di contenuto

Hal Ashby: new Hollywood auteur -- Hollywood maverick: Ashby, the new Hollywood, and the 1970s -- On the road to find out: The landlord and Harold and Maude -- Once I was a soldier: visions of the military in The last detail and Coming home -- I like to watch: Shampoo and Being there -- There's something happening here: music in Ashby's films -- A director under the influence: Ashby's final decade.

Sommario/riassunto

Analyzes the films and filmmaking career of director Hal Ashby, placing his work in the cultural context of filmmaking in the 1970s.   Hal Ashby directed eleven feature films over the course of his career and was an important figure in the Hollywood Renaissance of the late 1960s and 1970s. Though he was a member of the same generation of filmmakers as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Robert Altman, Ashby has received comparatively little critical or scholarly validation for his work. Author Christopher Beach argues that despite his lower profile, Ashby was an exceptionally versatile and unusually creative director. Beach focuses primarily on Ashby's first seven films-The Landlord, Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound for Glory, Coming Home, and Being There-to analyze Ashby's contributions to filmmaking culture in the 1970s. The first two chapters of this volume provide an overview of Ashby's filmmaking career, as Beach makes the case for Ashby's status as an auteur and provides a biographical survey of Ashby's most productive and successful decade, the 1970s. In the



following chapters, Beach analyzes groups of films to uncover important thematic concerns in Ashby's work, including the treatment of a young male protagonist in The Landlord and Harold and Maude, the representation of the U.S. military in The Last Detail and Coming Home, and the role of television and mass media in Shampoo and Being There. Beach also examines the crucial role of the musical score in Ashby's films, as well as the rapid decline of the director's career after Being There.   The Films of Hal Ashby is based on Beach's extensive use of unpublished archival materials, as well as a number of interviews with actors, directors, producers, cinematographers, and others involved in the making of Ashby's films. This volume will interest film and television scholars, as well as readers interested in filmmakers of the 1970s.