The collaboration of art and craft : an examination of American cinema of the early sixties

Hess, Noel Charles (2025) The collaboration of art and craft : an examination of American cinema of the early sixties. PhD thesis, Birkbeck, University of London.

Abstract

This thesis examines a series of mainstream American films produced between 1958 and 1966, in order to show that this was a rich and fertile period in American cinema, despite being rather overlooked critically and academically and dismissed as merely ‘transitional’. The approach taken to conduct this examination is one that views these films as the product of collaboration, not authorship. Just as this period of American cinema has been neglected, so has the importance of the contribution of actors, writers, cinematographers and editors to the distinctiveness and complexity of the films explored. The approach taken in this thesis sets out to put that right, by examining in detail the contributions of these collaborating film workers. Underpinning the approach is the idea that art and craft are interdependent; there is no art without craft, and art and craft are not easily differentiated. As well as this period of American cinema being of considerable interest in and of itself, it will be shown that it made possible many of the innovations in both form and content of the New Hollywood period that proceeded it. Finally, these films look both inward and outward – towards an exploration of troubled states of mind, and also reflecting the deeply troubled mind of the state of America in the early 1960s.

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