Movies about the movies
Subtitle: Hollywood reflected
By: Christopher Ames.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Lexington, Ky
Language: eng
Number of pages: 254
Subjects: Motion picture industry in motion pictures.
Description: Hundreds of films belonging to the genre of Hollywood-on-Hollywood movies can be found throughout the history of American cinema, from the days of silents to the present. They include films from genres as far ranging as musical, film noir, melodrama, comedy, and action adventure. Such movies seduce us with the promise of revealing the reality behind the camera. But, as part of the very industry they supposedly critique, they cannot take us behind the scenes in any true sense.

This paradox - the simultaneous debunking and celebration of Hollywood - lies at the heart of the genre. Through close analysis of the best of these films. Ames reveals how the idea of Hollywood is constructed (and constructs itself), particularly through such moments of explicit self-referentiality as the movie-within-a-movie and scenes set in studios.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 238-244) and index.
Includes filmography (p. 227).