Ida Lupino, Director: Her Art and Resilience in Times of Transition (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780813574905)

Dominated by men and bound by the restrictive Hays Code, postwar Hollywood offered little support for a female director who sought to make unique films on controversial subjects. But Ida Lupino bucked the system, writing and directing a string of movies that exposed the dark underside of American society, on topics such as rape, polio, unwed motherhood, bigamy, exploitative sports, and serial murder.

The first in-depth study devoted to Lupino's directorial work, this book makes a strong case for her as a trailblazing feminist auteur, a filmmaker with a clear signature style and an abiding interest in depicting the plights of postwar American women. Ida Lupino, Director not only examines her work as a cinematic auteur, but also offers a serious consideration of her diverse and long-ranging career, getting her start in Hollywood as an actress in her teens and twenties, directing her first films in her early thirties, and later working as an acclaimed director of television westerns, sitcoms, and suspense dramas. It also demonstrates how Lupino fused generic elements of film noir and the social problem film to create a distinctive directorial style that was both highly expressionistic and grittily realistic. Ida Lupino, Director thus shines a long-awaited spotlight on one of our greatest filmmakers.

Author: Therese Grisham, Julie Grossman
ISBN-10: 0813574900
ISBN-13: 9780813574905
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Language: English
Published: 05/23/2017
Pages: 264
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.78h x 6.04w x 0.64d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 11/01/2017