Show People: A History of the Film Star

(Hardback)

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Description

Show Peopleoffers a comprehensive history of the film star from Mary Pickford to Andy Serkis, traversing more than one hundred years and drawing on examples from America, Britain, Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

Newton builds up an expansive picture of movie stardom through striking and diverse figures such as Ingrid Bergman and John Wayne, Anna Karina and Sidney Poitier, Maggie Cheung and Raj Kapoor. He celebrates the great performers of the past, and looks forward to developments in the future, while also illuminating the inner workings of the movie industry and what moves us in a film, and in an actor's performance.

Ultimately,Show Peopleis a book about cinephilia, the love of cinema, and our complex connection to that celebrated and beleaguered figure, the movie star.

Reviews

Newton has subtlety, originality, and a wide range of reference . . . He has the knack of apt quotation . . . and sharp summary. * Sight and Sound *
Show People examines how film stars shaped the medium, rather than vice versa. In fact, it's a collection of essays on individual actors, from Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin to Scarlett Johansson, sometimes focusing on a single film, sometimes on whole careers, and sometime just on gossip . . . [it] made me want to seek out some of the oddities and forgotten classics he mentions. * Nick Curtis, Evening Standard *
Newton presents the history of film told through famous actors and the notable movies in which they starred. He discusses fifty stars across forty chapters grouped into five sections: 'The Silent Star' (e.g., Charlie Chaplin), 'The Golden Age' (e.g., Katharine Hepburn), 'National CinemasStars for the Nation' (e.g., John Wayne), 'New Wave Stars' (e.g., Sidney Poitier), and 'Posthuman Stars' (e.g., Scarlett Johansson). Each chapter presents a brief biography of the actor and descriptions of his/her most influential films. Each of the stars included brought something new to film culture, and Newton highlights and contextualizes that 'something' in contemporary work. Infused throughout are musings on the ephemeral nature of stardom, from rise to fall. But rather than presenting a thesis of the mechanisms of gaining and maintaining popularity, this book discusses multiple stars, allowing the reader to make comparisons across time and draw parallels and distinctions. Recommended. * Choice *
In Show People, professor and columnist Michael Newton waxes rhapsodic about a century of acting, with a special fondness for performances about performance . . . I spent a few nights rewatching movies I hadn't seen in a while, simply because of the way Newton writes about those small beats we love without knowing how to quite explain, the ones that can get reframed with new, wider context when you think about them more. * Genevieve Valentine, National Public Radio *
Thorough and thoughtful, Michael Newton's Show People is a major addition to existing literature on the subject of film stardom. I can't wait to read it a second time. * Gary D. Rhodes, author of The Perils of Moviegoing in America and The Birth of the American Horror Film *

Author Bio

Michael Newton teaches literature and film at Leiden University. He is the author of numerous popular books on film and cultural history, including Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (2002), and Age of Assassins (2012), both for Faber & Faber, and two BFI Film Classics Kind Hearts and Coronets (2003) and Rosemarys Baby (2019).