Romance Film : Passion Strategies in Film and Life

Romance Film is a critical history of significant romance films from Hollywood and abroad. Kagan discusses, among others, Marlene Dietrich in Blue Angel, Rita Hayworth in Gilda, Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, and Woody Allen in Annie Hall. Each chapter analyzes a type of lover, including the siren, rake, intriguer, dandy, innocent, coquette, charmer, charismatic, comic, and the self-destructive lover.” The book discusses each type’s continuities and the social forces and emotions that shape it. It also deals with films of first love—True Heart Susie (1930), Tarzan the Ape Man (1934), Picnic (1955), Rebel without a Cause (1955), The Sure Thing (1985), Dirty Dancing (1994), Titanic (1997)—and the ways in which youth discovers passion, frustration, and fulfillment.