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Chapter 6 - Conclusion

Read Anything Good Lately?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2024

Jordan Brower
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
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Summary

This book concludes in 1952, the year that the Miracle decision (Joseph Burstyn Inc. v. Wilson) established motion pictures as protected speech, to suggest one way to mark a common endpoint to the eras of the studio system and American modernism. That year, several books were either completed or published that serve as early instances of genres or attitudes that would come to the fore in postwar American fiction. This conclusion briefly addresses three such works: Lillian Ross’s Picture, James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain, and Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe. These books suggest a transformation of writers’ attitudes toward Hollywood, one that coincides with the identification of artistic strategies – the nonfiction novel; the conception of moviegoing as an experience worthy of artistic rendering; the campus novel – that would become increasingly prevalent in subsequent decades. The conclusion ends by giving Hollywood movies the chance to speak for themselves, attending to two MGM films of 1952: Singin’ in the Rain and, more intently, The Bad and the Beautiful. I read the latter as MGM’s version of a literary history of the studio system.

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Classical Hollywood, American Modernism
A Literary History of the Studio System
, pp. 178 - 191
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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  • Conclusion
  • Jordan Brower, University of Kentucky
  • Book: Classical Hollywood, American Modernism
  • Online publication: 04 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009419192.007
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  • Conclusion
  • Jordan Brower, University of Kentucky
  • Book: Classical Hollywood, American Modernism
  • Online publication: 04 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009419192.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Jordan Brower, University of Kentucky
  • Book: Classical Hollywood, American Modernism
  • Online publication: 04 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009419192.007
Available formats
×