![]() At the time of their meeting, Selznick was besotted, immediately setting to work to turn her into a new movie star. The producer, then famous for the back-to-back triumphs of Gone with the Wind (1939) and Rebecca (1940), was the one that came up with that change, formulating an alliterative name that rang with the promise of success, mass appeal, the shine of stardom. Selznick first saw Jennifer Jones in 1941, when she was still known as Phyllis Isley Walker. One wants to transcend the tabloid, and contemplate how a myriad of different forces can shape performance.ĭavid O. While it’s challenging to examine the pair’s shared history without falling into a pit of gossipy polemic, one strives to see beyond the scandalous publicity that descended upon them from the 1960s onwards, when Selznick’s death and Jones’ suicide attempts started to overshadow any of their film’s legacy. The Song of Bernadette (Henry King, 1943) was their first collaboration, and it earned Jones a Best Actress Oscar, an honor that coincided with her transition from an unknown name to a new star thrust upon the public, whether audiences wanted it or not. From 1943 onward, Selznick produced most of the movies Jones starred in, or at least had a significant influence in their making. Selznick and actress Jennifer Jones, and their personal, professional, and artistic partnership. Specifically, our focus shall be producer David O. Why not expand the paradigms of a producer’s purported iniquity or undervalued artistic importance to their relationship with actors?įrom David and Goliath, we move to other classic archetypes, those of Pygmalion and his Galatea, perchance Svengali and Trilby. Following that particular train of thought, one could and should also question why the narrative of a producer’s influence on film tends to center the relationship between them and the director. Regarding cinema, this is especially true, seeing as it’s one of the more intrinsically collaborative artforms-making blanket statements on the dynamic of its makers would be a fool’s errand. In any form, essentialism is never a good school of thought to bring into historical considerations or art criticism. Those two have escaped the vilifying fate of the David and Goliath archetype, but they’re certainly not the only ones who deserve to be spared. Arthur Freed too, for no individual did more to define the midcentury musical than MGM’s very own music man. Val Lewton is another example of a producer some might rightfully call an auteur, his RKO horror movies having a long-lasting legacy, even beyond those helmed by Jacques Tourneur. Van Dyke, 1938) being completed according to his vision after the producer had met an untimely end in 1936. Thalberg’s influence managed to last beyond death, with The Good Earth (Sidney Franklin, 1937) and Marie Antoinette (W.S. And they were his films more than they were anybody else’s, so strong was his control over their making. For as much as one might bristle at the tales of Thalberg’s iron-fisted disputes with Stroheim, his productions marked an era of American Film History. Maybe it’s even been too influential, robbing the figure of the producer of a more benign reputation, of authorial intent altogether. The celebration of a director’s authorial voice, theorized to significant effect in the postwar years, has shaped some of this historical narrative. How many cinephiles have dreamed of seeing what Erich von Stroheim’s version of Greed (1924) would have been without the judicious cuts of Irving Thalberg? That’s just one example out of many, a story that has repeated itself countless times within the Hollywood industry and elsewhere. ![]() Considering the wealth of tales about producers butchering great artists’ visions, flattening complicated art into disposable Pablum, it’s easy to see why this David and Goliath archetype has persisted. From the early days of cinema to modern times, many stories have been told and re-told about the clash of producers and directors the money men fighting the creative commerce in contention with art. To cast producers in the role of the antagonist is one of film history’s most pervasive quirks. Essay Part of Issue #8: The Soul's Interior, The Divine Hand ![]()
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