Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Arzner, Dorothy, --1900-1979--Criticism and interpretation; Arzner, Dorothy, --1900-1979; Women motion picture producers and directors--United States--Biography; Women motion picture producers and directors; United States; Biographies; Criticism, interpretation, etc;

Abstract

Dorothy Arzner was the first woman to join the Director's Guild of America and one of the only directors to amass a catalog of eighteen films. Despite the respect she managed to win in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s, a stylistic auteur study has never been completed of many of her films. In this thesis, I review seven of Arzner' s films to uncover her stylistic sense of direction and editing to define her status as an auteur. The opening chapter provides background information regarding Arzner' s life and a working definition of the film term "auteur." In this chapter, I explore how Arzner won the respect of her colleagues in her career as a writer, editor, and director in a time when few women were working in technical fields in Hollywood. I also define what makes an auteur based on the scholarship of Andrew Sarris and Peter Wollen and discuss Dorothy Arzner's traits as an auteur. The next two chapters provide stylistic analyses of seven of Dorothy Arzner' s films. I examine Arzner' s films in regards to their stylistic structure in detail to demonstrate her characteristics as an auteur. The first of these two chapters discusses the early part of her career when her sense of style first developed to show her growth as a director and editor over time. The second chapter examines the close of Arzner' s career when the studio control over films tightened. Here, I examine how Arzner asserted her identity as director and auteur as studios took away the power she previously held over the directing process. I also show why Arzner left Hollywood despite her respected status as the only woman film director with a steady contract in the major studios. Dorothy Arzner' s films are an important part of American film culture and are important to scholars not only in feminist and queer/gay/lesbian schools, but also various film scholars in the auteur, genre, and narratology schools. By studying her works, we can gain valuable insight into our film heritage and the career of an important director in the Modern period.

Year of Submission

2001

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of English Language and Literature

First Advisor

Richard Fehlman

Second Advisor

Grant Tracey

Third Advisor

G. Scott Cawelti

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

2001

Object Description

1 PDF file (82 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Download

Comments?

Share

COinS