For the truly serious cineaste, Joel Finler’s Hollywood Movie Stills: Art and Technique in the Golden Age of the Studios is a buffet of exquisite ironies. For one: that much of the history, the grandeur and the glitz, the behind-the-scenes grit and the red carpet glory associated with the moving picture have come to us through pictures that don’t move. One could argue that much of the glamour and mystique which defines Hollywood – at least the Hollywood of the Golden Age of the old studio system – is as much the result of the work of still photographers as the movies themselves. In some cases, the work of “stillmen” is all that remains of lost footage cut from movies still acclaimed today (as with Eric von Stroheim’s silent era classic, Greed [1924]), as well as entire movies lost through accident, poor storage, or even intentional destruction in an era...
- 5/31/2012
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
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