Cinema's Melodramatic Celebrity Film, Fame, and Personal Worth

Challenging the study of both celebrity and the cinema, Mandy Merck argues that modern fame and film melodrama are part of the same worldview, one that cannot resolve the relation of personal worth to social esteem. Tracing the history of this conundrum back to the philosophy of the 17th century and the theatre of the 18th, she demonstrates its convergence in stage melodrama and its intensification in the Hollywood star system. Are today's celebrities worth our attention? In that demand for judgement and the hope for its visual guidance, the melodramatic imagination survives - permeating not only fiction film, but documentary, the artist's film, and our self-exhibition on social media. Examining a range of classical and contemporary films from Charlie Chaplin's City Lights (1931) to Laura Poitras's Citizenfour (2014) , the many remakes of A Star Is Born, the compulsory exhibitionism of political celebrity and the unmasking of whistle-blowers, Merck illustrates the ways in which the cinema constantly restages the moral evaluation of prominent individuals, whether they are actors, artists, politicians or activists.

ISBN:	9781839024573
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing (UK)
Imprint:	BFI
Published date:	27 Jan 2022
DEWEY:	302.234
DEWEY edition:	23
Language:	English
Number of pages:	280
Weight:	484g
Height:	156mm
Width:	234mm
Spine width:	18mm

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