http://www.syndicatemizzou.org Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:43:52 GMT en-us 40 Center for eResearch Connecting you with the University of Missouri’s innovative research and creative activity http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/images/logo.png 384 80 http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/west/ipod/West03.m4v Education http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/west/ipod/West03.m4v West is currently finishing a book, _From Celluloid to Tabloid_, in collaboration with Penelope Pelizzon (University of Connecticut), on Hollywood crime films and tabloid journalism from the 1920s through the 1940s. Unlike the tabloids of today, which West decries as “pretty trashy scandal magazines and newspapers…often designed to expose and ruin people’s careers,” the tabloids of the earlier era contain much more liveliness and inventiveness. “Although the cliché is that the tabloids have always been pitched to the uneducated, these early ones from the 1920s are surprisingly literary, replete with metaphorical word play, allusions, wit, and irony.” Tabloid writers often went on to become celebrated novelists and screenwriters for Hollywood. Beyond their literary value, these tabloids also teach us about urban culture and modernity, especially about New York in the 1920s and 1930s. West and Pelizzon refer to these tabloids as “adaptation-ready sites,” because they know how to spin information so quickly from one source. 3 Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:28:07 GMT http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/west/ipod/West04.m4v Education http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/west/ipod/West04.m4v Asked to recommend films from this era “where you have journalists exhibiting all the characteristics of gangsters,” the first two films West mentions are _The Picture Snatcher_ (1933) and _Blessed Event_ (1932), which were produced just as the gangster film genre seemed to be disappearing from the Hollywood screen, owing to the Production Code’s restrictions. But Hollywood—in its need to continue profiting from the gangster’s popularity—found ways to “get around the censors,” explains West. “All of the gangster’s characteristics (his penchant for violence, his street smarts, his flashy style, his witty repartee) are put into the figure of the newspaper reporter,” who rarely works for a legitimate newspaper, West adds, but for a tabloid newspaper—“So, they get to have it both ways!” In the area of noir documentaries, where filmmakers experimented by combining film noir style with a documentary style, West recommends _Naked City_ (1948). 3 Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:28:27 GMT