Shadow Cinema : The Historical and Production Contexts of Unmade Films

Filmmakers and cinema industries across the globe invest more time, money and creative energy in projects and ideas that never get produced than in the movies that actually make it to the screens. Thousands of projects are abandoned in pre-production, halted, cut short, or even made and never distributed - a "shadow cinema" that exists only in the archives. This collection of essays by leading scholars and researchers opens those archives to draw on a wealth of previously unexamined scripts, correspondence and production material, reconstructing many of the hidden histories of the last hundred years of world cinema. Highlighting the fact that the movies we see are actually the exception to the rule, this study uncovers the myriad reasons why 'failures' occur and considers how understanding those failures can transform the disciplines of film and media history. The first survey of this new area of empirical study across transnational borders, Shadow Cinema is a vital and fascinating demonstration of the importance of the unmade, unseen, and unknown history of cinema. 1. A production strategy of overdevelopment: Kirk Douglas's Bryna Productions and the unproduced Viva Gringo! / James Fenwick -- 2. Gone with the winds that never were: The David O. Selznick Archive and unmade historical cinema / David Eldridge -- 3. Parting the Iron Curtain: Michael Klinger's attempt to make A Man and a Half / Andrew Spicer -- Part II: Directors and auteurs -- 4. Unfinished business: Godard, cinema and theatre in the 1960s / Michael Witt -- 5. Ken Russell's unfinished projects and unmade films, 1956-1968: The BBC years / Matthew Melia -- 6. Ghatak in the shadows: Films that struggled / Sanghita Sen -- Part III: Questioning the unmade -- 7. Herding Cats; or, the poss / bilities of unproduction studies -- Peter C. Kunze -- 8. Assembling Frankenstein / Kieran Foster -- 9. Burning bright: Samue / Fuller's Tigrero and accidental ethnography -- Andrew Howe -- 10. Clouzot's L'Enfer / Lucy Mazdon -- 11. Claude Lanzmann's Shoah and its shadow: Rescue and resistance / Sue Vice -- Part IV: Reconstructing the unmade -- 12. The never Alice: Marilyn Manson, gothic girlhoods, and Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll / Alexandra Heller-Nicholas -- 13. The movie producer, the feminists and the serial killer: UK feminist activism, misogynist 70s film culture and the (non) filming of the Yorkshire Ripper Murders / Hannah Hamad -- 14. The unmade undead: A post-mortem of the post-9/11 zombie cycle / Todd K. Platts -- Index Cover 1 Half title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Contributors 9 Introduction 12 Part I Producers and production companies 26 1 A production strategy of overdevelopment: Kirk Douglas’s Bryna Productions and the unproduced Viva Gringo! 28 2 Gone with the winds that never were: The David O. Selznick archive and unmade historical cinema 50 3 Parting the Iron Curtain: Michael Klinger’s attempt to make A Man and a Half 68 Part II Directors and auteurs 82 4 Unfinished business: Godard, cinema and theatre in the 1960s 84 5 Ken Russell’s unfinished projects and unmade films, 1956–68: The BBC years 102 6 Ghatak in the shadows: Films that struggled 120 Part III Questioning the unmade 138 7 Herding Cats; or, the possibilities of unproduction studies 140 8 Assembling Frankenstein 164 9 Burning bright: Samuel Fuller’s Tigrero and accidental ethnography 182 10 Clouzot’s L’Enfer 196 11 Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah and its shadow: Rescue and resistance 210 Part IV Reconstructing the unmade 226 12 The never Alice: Marilyn Manson, gothic girlhoods and Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll 228 13 The movie producer, the feminists and the serial killer: UK feminist activism, misogynist 70s fi lm culture and the (non) filming of the Yorkshire Ripper murders 246 14 The unmade undead: A post-mortem of the post-9/11 zombie cycle 262 Index 278 "A collection of historically focused chapters that examines the hidden history of cinema's abandoned, halted, or unreleased projects, revealing new perspectives about the industrial and economic contexts of film production"-- Provided by publisher