Martin Rubin

The name Busby Berkeley, creator of the dances for films such as 42nd Street, Babes in Arms, and Million Dollar Mermaid, is synonymous with the spectacular musical production number. Films, television commercials, and MTV videos continue to use "Berkeleyesque" techniques long after Berkeley himself and the genre that nourished him have faded from the scene. The first major analysis of Berkeley's career on stage and screen, Showstoppers emphasizes his relationship to a colorful, somewhat disreputable tradition of American popular entertainment: that of P. T. Barnum, minstrel shows, vaudeville, Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, burlesque, and the Ziegfeld Follies. Rubin shows how Berkeley absorbed this declining theatrical tradition during his years as a Broadway dance director and then transferred it to the new genre of the early movie musical. With lively prose and engaging photographs, Showstoppers explores new ways of looking at Busby Berkeley, at the musical genre, and at individual films. Appropriate for both specialists and general readers, Showstoppers is an exuberant study of a figure whose career, Rubin notes, "provides an extraordinarily rich point of convergence for a wide range of cultural and artistic contexts".

Busby Berkeley and the Tradition of Spectacle

Showstoppers

Annalee Newitz

Barry Keith Grant

Simpson, Philip L.

This anthology examines a number of issues related to violence within the media landscape.

Mythologies of Violence in Postmodern Media

A South African Life

Sarah Gertrude Millin

Rubin Martin

An in-depth exploration of the 'thriller' movie genre.

Thrillers

Este libro ofrece al lector el primer estudio completo y profundo sobre este genero, desde los seriales del cine mudo a las recientes peliculas de arma blanca (stalkers), desde Alfred Hitchcock a Quentin Tarantino, desde The Great Train Robbery a L. A. Confidential. Martin Rubin muestra de que manera este genero visceral y cargado de emociones ha utilizado el suspense, la velocidad y las sensaciones fuertes para mantenernos clavados en nuestras butacas durante todo un siglo de cine estadounidense. El thriller es quiza el genero cinematografico mas popular, pero tambien el mas dificil de definir. Admite gangsters y fantasmas, cascos espaciales o sombreros de fieltro. Infunde a nuestro familiar mundo moderno un espiritu de aventuras exiticas como las de tiempos pasados. Nos produce placer y, al mismo tiempo, angustia: la ansiedad, la vulnerabilidad y el escalofrio forman parte de la emociin del thriller.

Martin Rubin

About

Books

Join the club