An American Family

by Ruoff, Jeffrey

• ISBN13: 9780816635610
• ISBN10: 0816635617
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Minnesota Pr

Summary

Before 1973, the Loud family of Santa Barbara, California, lived in the privacy of their own home. With the airing of the documentary An American Family, that "privacy" extended to every American home with a television. This book is the first to offer a close look at An American Family -- the documentary that blurred conventions, stirred passions, revised impressions of family life and definitions of private and public, and began the breakdown of distinctions between reality and spectacle that culminated in cultural phenomena from The Oprah Winfrey Show to Survivor.

Author Biography

Jeffrey Ruoff is a film historian, documentary filmmaker, and assistant professor of film and television studies at Dartmouth College

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction: Recasting Documentary	xv
PART I MAKING AN AMERICAN FAMILY
``A Real View of Middle-Class Life''	3	(21)
Filming the Louds, Editing the Footage	24	(29)
PART II A CLOSER LOOK AT AN AMERICAN FAMILY
``A Bastard Union of Several Forms''	53	(11)
Opening Night: Episode One	64	(13)
Sound in Documentary: Listening to the Louds	77	(18)
PART III THE RECEPTION OF AN AMERICAN FAMILY
Publicity Sets the Stage, Reviews Steal the Show	95	(25)
The Louds Strike Back	120	(10)
Conclusion: The Children of An American Family	130	(9)
Notes	139	(10)
Bibliography	149	(6)
Index	155