Dying Swans and Madmen

by McLean, Adrienne L.

• ISBN13: 9780813542805
• ISBN10: 0813542804
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-05-30
• Publisher: Rutgers Univ Pr

Summary

From mid-twentieth-century films such as Grand Hotel, Waterloo Bridge, and The Red Shoes to recent box-office hits including Billy Elliot, Save the Last Dance, and The Company, ballet has found its way, time and again, onto the silver screen and into the hearts of many otherwise unlikely audiences. In Dying Swans and Madmen, Adrienne L. McLean explores the curious pairing of classical and contemporary, art and entertainment, high culture and popular culture to reveal the ambivalent place that this art form occupies in American life.

Author Biography

Adrienne L. McLean is a professor of film studies at the University of Texas at Dallas

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: Ballet in Tin Cans	p. 1
A Channel for Progress: Theatrical Dance, Popular Culture, and (The) American Ballet	p. 34
The Lot of a Ballerina Is Indeed Tough: Gender, Genre, and the Ballet Film through 1947, Part I	p. 62
The Man Was Mad-But a Geniusl: Gender, Genre, and the Ballet Film through 1947, Part II	p. 104
If You Can Disregard the Plot: The Red Shoes in an American Context	p. 133
The Second Act Will Be Quite Different: Cinema, Culture, and Ballet in the 1950s	p. 172
Turning Points: Ballet and Its Bodies in the "Post-Studio" Era	p. 215
Notes	p. 259
Filmography	p. 291
Index	p. 297
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