Setting the Scene: The Great Hollywood Art Directors - Hardcover

Robert S. Sennett

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810938464 ISBN 13: 9780810938465

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, 1994

Synopsis

Critical to a movie's success, the art director helps create the overall "look" for which a film is remembered. This book, filled with 165 stunning illustrations--some in color--surveys the careers of the greatest Hollywood art directors from the silent era to the present. Covers such movies as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Batman(1989).

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Reviews

This stunningly illustrated album is a glorious, highly perceptive tribute to Hollywood's unsung heroes-art directors or production designers, who, with responsibility for settings, special effects and a film's overall look, can make or break a movie. Moving from the earliest silents to recent box-office hits, Sennett (Photography and Photographers to 1900) throws a floodlight on the techniques, working habits, personal idiosyncrasies, lives and styles of art directors such as Frank Wortman (Birth of a Nation), Richard Day (On the Waterfront), William Menzies (Gone with the Wind), Dean Tavoularis (The Godfather) and Anton Furst (Batman). He devotes separate chapters to musicals, horror films, westerns, movies with exotic or foreign locales (Lost Horizon; Amadeus) and Alfred Hitchcock, who designed his own films. Film buffs and casual readers will gain a new perspective on cinematic history and how art direction interacts with plot, character and acting to create a unified statement. (Nov.) Fiction
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Sennett, son of prolific film historian Ted Sennett, has produced an attractive book about Hollywood's art directors-those individuals usually most responsible for the "look" of a film. Wisely, Sennett eschews a straight chronological approach and instead organizes his book by film genre (e.g., musicals, Westerns, science fiction). The illustrations are well chosen, although more color would have been welcome, and the color photos used would be more effective were they not all grouped together. Unfortunately, Sennett's text is only serviceable and relies too much on plot synopses. A detailed look at a film or two, along with the once-over-lightly approach used on the other films, would have helped, as would some interviews. Only for comprehensive film studies collections.
John Smothers, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, N.J.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Sennett's tribute to the relatively unsung creators responsible for the "look" of a film serves as a sort of history of American cinema as well--from the silent period, when art direction evidenced a strong fine art influence; through horror movies, films noir, musicals, westerns, and other genres; to today's big-budget blockbusters, in which computer technology has transformed film design into a complex technical craft. Art direction flourished in the golden age of Hollywood, when the studios had the money and talent to indulge filmmakers' wildest fantasies. By 1970 the end of the studio system, a rise in location shooting, and other factors had diminished the art director's role. The opportunity still exists, however, for art-direction triumphs like The Godfather II and Batman. Sennett's perceptive and informed text singles out the most notable practitioners of the art and effectively complements the 165 stills and other illustrations (most, unfortunately, in black-and-white) that serve as the best demonstration of the craft this handsome volume celebrates. Gordon Flagg

Edition details

• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0810938464
• ISBN 13: 9780810938465
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 207