Hamlet Lives in Hollywood

John Barrymore and the Acting Tradition Onscreen

Murray Pomerance, Steven Rybin

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781474411400
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

John Barrymore's influence on screen and stage in the early twentieth century is incalculable. His performances in the theatre defined Shakespeare for a generation, and his transition to cinema brought his theatrical performativity to both silent and sound screens. This book, a collection of fifteen original essays on the film performances and stardom of John Barrymore, redresses this lack of scholarship on Barrymore by offering a range of varied perspectives on the actor's work. Looking at his performances and influence from the perspectives of gender studies, psychoanalysis, queer studies and performance analysis, Hamlet Lives in Hollywood represents a major attempt by contemporary scholars to come to terms with the ongoing vitality of John Barrymore's work in our present day.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Figures
• The Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The Pre-Bard Stage Career of John Barrymore
• 2 Dangerously Modern: Shakespeare, Voice, and the “New Psychology” in John Barrymore’s “Unstable” Ch
• 3 The Curious Case of Sherlock Holmes
• 4 John Barrymore’s Introspective Performance in Beau Brummel
• 5 “Keep back your pity”: The wounded Barrymore of The Sea Beast (1926) and Moby Dick (1930)
• 6 From Rome to Berlin: Barrymore as Romantic Lover
• 7 The Power of Stillness: John Barrymore’s Performance in Svengali
• 8 Prospero Unbound: John Barrymore’s Theatrical Transformations of Cinema Reality
• 9 A Star is Dead: Barrymore’s Anti-Christian Metaperformance
• 10 Handling Time: The Passing of Tradition in A Bill of Divorcement
• 11 John Barrymore’s Sparkling Topaze
• 12 “Planes, Motors, Schedules”: Night Flight and the Modernity of John Barrymore
• 13 Barrymore and the Scene of Acting: Gesture, Speech, and the Repression of Cinematic Performance
• 14 “I Never Thought I Should Sink So Low as to Become an Actor”: John Barrymore in Twentieth Century
• 15 Barrymore Does Barrymore: The Performing Self Triumphant in The Great Profile
• Works Cited