Drawing on new and previously neglected sources, this book is an expert and timely reassessment of Elia Kazan's life in the cinema. The result is a fresh and memorable portrait of both the man and his work which highlights the remarkable and enduring contribution to American, and world, cinema of this ever fascinating, Oscar-winning director. Author Brian Neve examines Kazan's key artistic collaborations--with actors such as Marlon Brando and James Dean and playwrights such as Tennessee Williams and John Steinbeck--and analyzes his cinematic style, from visual techniques to recurrent themes...

In A Social Cinema: Film-making and Politics in America, Brian Neve presents a study of the social and political nature of American film by concentrating on a generation of writers from the thirties who directed films in Hollywood in the 1940's. He discusses how they negotiated their roles in relation to the studio system, itself undergoing change, and to what extent their experience in the political and theatre movements of thirties New York was to be reflected in their later films.
Focusing in particular on Orson Welles, Elia Kazan, Jules Dassin, Abraham Polonsky, Nicholas Ray,...