Katharine Hepburn
Subtitle: Star as Feminist (Film and Culture Series)
Contributors: Robin Wood (Foreword)
Edition: New Ed edition
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: February 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9780231132763
Subjects: Feminism; Individual actors & performers; Performing Arts; Biography / Autobiography; Cinema/Film: Book; Entertainment & Performing Arts - Actors & Actresses; Performing Arts / Film / General; Film & Video - History & Criticism; 1907-2003; Criticism and interpretation; Feminism and motion pictures; Hepburn, Katharine,
First sentence: The Hepburn persona can be related to an American tradition of feeling about women which finds its most significant expression in Henry James's image of the 'American princes'.
Description: "Of all the major Hollywood stars, Katharine Hepburn was the least conventional, conforming to none of the stereotypes of female superstardom. She was not an exotic outsider in Hollywood like Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich; nor was she a victim of the studios like Judy Garland or Marilyn Monroe; and she was certainly not a creature of the system like Joan Crawford and Lana Turner. Instead, she always appeared intelligent, willful, and independent, able to develop her own persona within the confines of the studio system." "Andrew Britton proposes a feminist reading of Hepburn's films, arguing that her persona raises problems about class, female sexuality, and women's oppression that strain to the limits the conventions of a cinema ultimately committed to the reassertion of bourgeois gender roles. Hepburn's work is also used to explore more general issues, such as the functioning of the star system. This is one of the very few analyses of American cinema to focus on a film star rather than a director or a genre and as such is essential reading for anyone interested in the movies. This edition also includes Andrew Britton's cogent and perceptive program notes for a Hepburn season at London's National Film Theatre."--Jacket.