tytuł: | Kino Prestona Sturgesa : autorskie dywersje na obrzeżach klasycznej narracji |
wariant tytułu: |
The cinema of Preston Sturges : author's diversions on the edge of classical narrative |
autor: | Skupień Ireneusz |
recenzent: | Piskorz Artur, Żyto Kamila |
promotor: | Helman Alicja |
instytucja sprawcza: | Uniwersytet Jagielloński. Wydział Zarządzania i Komunikacji Społecznej |
miejsce powstania: |
Kraków |
data obrony : | 2020-06-03 |
strony: | 268 |
sygnatura : |
Dokt. 2020/053 |
uwagi: | Dostęp do publikacji jest możliwy w Archiwum UJ |
język: | polski |
abstrakt w j. angielskim: | The subject of the doctoral dissertation is the cinema of Preston Sturges, an influential and innovative creator who has still not received enough attention from film historians. In the centre of the research reflection, the author places directing and screenwriting achievements of this American artist. His work can be divided chronologically into three stages: the thirties, in which he built his position in the American studio system as an outstanding screenwriter; the golden period of 1940-1944, in which he provided Paramount Pictures with eight, fully independent successful productions; and the later period, which can be described as a progressive erosion of creative ideas and increasing difficulties in acquiring funds for further masterpieces. The indicated research area is indirectly embodied in the topic and focuses on the category of an "author" and a "narrative". Its important complement is a hypothesis that the structure of the presented world, the "ideological variables" conditioning it and the narrative strategies used in Sturges' works are an anticipation of philosophical and cultural as well as aesthetic postmodernism. In this dissertation, the author interprets the works of Preston Sturges through the prism of transgressing performance conventions, narrative strategies and preferred ideology, which are characteristic of the classical Hollywood cinema. Sturges' ambiguous position, as both the author and participant of the studio system, justifies going beyond the purely textual dimension in the analyses and interpretations of his works, in consequence locating them in historical, social and political contexts, which significantly determine their semantic structures. In turn, the American director's ways of deconstructing the norms and conventions of the classical cinema are a clear prefiguration of postmodernism in film. The two-coding character included in Sturges' pieces is a decisive factor that allows to interpret his works as a phenomenon that simultaneously falls into his contemporary cinema models, as well as a completely separate work with his independent style. The works of this American director, extremely stylistically consistent and marked with a recognizable writing technique, meet all the conditions to feel tempted to read them through the prism of the authorial policy defined in the 1950s. Referring to the dispute on terminology related to the understanding of film authorship present in a historical and film reflection, the author in this dissertation does not abstract from the biographical legend of the American artist. Trying to go beyond the purely textual dimension, the author looks at the contexts (historical, social, political) that determine the meaning structures of Sturges' films. That cinema, though hybrid in genre (screwball comedy, slapstick, cartoons, westerns, political pamphlet), was supposed to perform well in its popular dimension, therefore it is reasonable to analyze it through the light of the times in which it was created. Of course, such a research strategy cannot ignore issues related to reflection over the genre of Preston Sturges’ films, as the above-mentioned hybridism and genre eclecticism favor the emergence of such relationships within Sturges’ individual pictures that have a decisive impact on the perception of his work in terms of innovation and originality. Preston Sturges was a creator who significantly redefined understanding of traditional roles in the way films were made in Hollywood. Consistent combination of the tasks for a screenwriter/director constituted a novelty in the existing Hollywood production models. Thus, the American authorial "originality" cannot be considered in isolation from the implementation context and production models dominating in the contemporary large-scale film studios. Another research problem that is developed in this dissertation concerns a deconstruction of classical narrative formulas. Sturges makes it in numerous ways. The most emblematic strategy in this respect is violating the chronological order (especially through a frequent use of flashbacks), disturbing orientation during the story and applying a hypothetical narrative. In turn, autothematicity, intertextuality and the ubiquitous pastiche are factors that allow to interpret Sturges' works as "meta-images", which act as a discursive reflection on formal and stylistic solutions constituting the paradigm of the classical cinema, as well as on the non-textual representation in which Sturges' work relativizes the most important components of the American cinema of the 1930s and 1940s (ideology of success, heroic war mythologies, moral patterns, institution of marriage, values of the American West, etc.) and shows the structures and mechanisms that Hollywood conceals behind its film texts. |
słowa kluczowe w j. polskim: | narracja, autor, kino klasyczne, postmodernizm, Hollywood |
słowa kluczowe w j. angielskim: | narrative, author, classical cinema, postmodernism, Hollywood |
wydział: instytut / zakład / katedra: | Wydział Zarządzania i Komunikacji Społecznej : Instytut Sztuk Audiowizualnych |
typ: | rozprawa doktorska |