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Film, Media and Contemporary Cultures

Director Focus: Otto Preminger

Course Times & Enrolment

This course is currently unavailable.

Course Summary

An in-depth reassessment of the films of producer-director Otto Preminger exploring the nature of Preminger’s work and its social, political and industrial backdrop. The course will seek to establish that it was the historical context of his films, not just directorial personality, that gave his work a distinct stamp.

Course Details

Content of Course

While under contract to 20th Century-Fox, Preminger directed several thrillers that elaborated on the spell of Laura: Fallen Angel (1945), Whirlpool (1949), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), and Angel Face (1952). This group of films – to which may be added the Joan Crawford soap opera Daisy Kenyon (1947) – remains the core of the Preminger canon: films with ambiguous narratives, foregrounding the themes of male obsession and female perversity, marked by fluid camera movements and the presence of iconic actors such as Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney. Preminger launched his career as an independent producerdirector with the comedy The Moon Is Blue (1953), released without the Production Code’s seal of approval (withheld on the grounds of supposedly risqué dialogue, including the word “virgin”). He flouted Hollywood censorship again by filming The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Nelson Algren’s novel about a heroin addict.

After Anatomy of a Murder (1959), which remains, with Laura, Preminger’s most popular film, he made a series of films based on popular novels on social-political themes: Exodus (1960), Advise and Consent (1962), The Cardinal (1963), In Harm’s Way (1965), Hurry Sundown (1966). Although these films were noted for their location shooting and other hallmarks of realism, they met with decreasing interest from critics. Yet Preminger became, along with Hitchcock, one of the only Hollywood directors to be widely familiar to the general public.

Teaching method(s)

The course will be lecture based with reference to full screenings, followed by analysis and discussion. Weekly readings will be delivered to students electronically. 

Learning outcomes

On completion of this course, the student will be able to: 

  • Understand the Cinema of Otto Preminger in the context of the Auteur Theory; 

  • Appreciate the advantages/disadvantages of working in the classical Hollywood studio system; 

  • Understand the role of the Production code; 

  • Critically examine ideological issues within popular cinema.

Sources

Core Readings

Recommended:

  • Fujiwara, Chris, 2008. The World and Its Double: the Life and Work of Otto Preminger. London & New York: Faber Grant, Barry Keith, 2008. Auteurs and Authorship: A Film Reader. New York & London: Wiley Blackwell.

  • Hodson, Barrett, 2017. The Elusive Auteur: The Question of Film Authorship Throughout the Age of Cinema. Jefferson NC: McFarland &Co.

  • Pratley, Gerald, 1971. The Cinema of Otto Preminger. New York: Castle Books

  • Rosenbaum, Jonathan, 1980. “Otto Preminger.” Cinema: A Critical Dictionary, The Major Film-makers. Vol. pp. 794-9. 1980 New York: Viking Press

Queries

If you have questions regarding the course or enrolment, please contact COL Reception at Paterson's Land by email or by phone 0131 650 4400.

Student support

If you have a disability, learning difficulty or health condition which may affect your studies, please let us know by ticking the 'specific support needs' box on your course application form. This will allow us to make appropriate adjustments in advance and in accordance with your rights under the Equality Act 2010. For more information please visit the Student Support section of our website.