All films are about the theatre: there is no other subject, ' wrote
Jacques Rivette, pre-eminent filmmaker and theorist of the French New
Wave. Theatres on Film is an innovative contribution to the study of
both theatre and film history. From the early days of cinema, the
relationship between theatre and the cinema has been one of tension in
which the need to assert independence is mingled with a degree of
respect and anxiety regarding the supposedly superior status of the
senior partner. With its detailed discussion of popular and influential
films that have taken the theatre as their subject, informed by a strong
sense of the cultural and historical background, The emphasis is on
films made after the advent of synchronised sound, which brought to the
fore both the attraction' and threat of the theatre, reflected in the
substance as well as the promotion and reception of such films as The
Jazz Singer (1927). Rather than attempt a catalogue of survey of the
hundreds of films in which theatre appears, Theatres on Film focuses on
the significance and effect of theatrical subject matter in key films in
several genres, and ranges from Busby Berkeley and Vincente Minelli to
Ingmar Bergman and Jean Renoir, and from the haunted backstage world of
The Phantom of the Opera to the sinister glamour of The Red Shoes and
the theatrical politics (and politicised theatre) of Mephisto and The
Lives of Others. Theatres on Film will appeal to film- and theatregoers,
as well as to readers with an academic or professional interest in its
subject.
