Hollywood Lighting from the Silent Era to Film Noir

Though often unnoted, lighting performs an important function in Hollywood film, enhancing the glamour, clarifying the action, and intensifying the mood. Examining every facet of this understated art form, from the glowing backlights of the silent period to the shaded alleys of film noir, Patrick Keating establishes Hollywood lighting as a distinct compositional force.With close analyses of Girl Shy(1924), Anna Karenina(1935), Only Angels Have Wings(1939), and T-Men(1947), among other classics, Keating describes the unique problems posed by each film and the innovative ways cinematographers meet the challenge. Once dismissed as crank-turning laborers, cinematographers became skillful professional artists by carefully balancing the competing demands of story, studio, and star. Enhanced by more than one hundred illustrations, this volume disproves the conventional theory that Hollywood film style took a backseat to storytelling, revealing that the lighting practices of the studio era were anything but neutral, uniform, and invisible. Cinematographers were masters of multifunctionality and negotiation, honing their craft to achieve both realistic fantasy and pictorial artistry.