Product Description

On its original publication in 1980 this text was one of the first attempts to bring together all the various critical and theoretical approaches that have been made to the phenomenon of stardom, both inside and outside the cinema. Richard Dyer's commentary on these approaches and his own detailed work on stars such as Bette Davis and Jane Fonda aim to stimulate further work in this area of film studies. This revised edition features a new chapter by Paul McDonald which traces the developments in the study of "Stars" since the first appearance of Richard Dyer's text.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39253 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Stars unfolded and re-baffled.

There is no doubt that Richard Dyer is the father of Star theory, his notions and concepts have supplied the tools necessary to analyze cinema's popular identities. However, his use of language in `Stars' is incredibly dense, to the extent where you feel lost--If language was made to express oneself easily and conveniently from one entity to the other, I do not understand why writers try to explain things with such dramatic phrase formulation and complicated vocabulary. Some say you need complex language to convey complex ideas--bollocks, everything can be broken down into simple and plain `this and that.' I study literature and linguistics and Richard Dyer is perhaps one of the most disorganized writers I've ever read. He has million dollar ideas but they are presented in such a disorganized manner, you'd wish you never bought this book. It is hard to stay focused and interested when you have to re-read every paragraph as if it were a science book. Film writers want to prove that film studies is an intellectual subject, so they use complicated language to satisfy their own fears within the academic circles. Save yourself the trouble and read a summary or a simpler book which explains his theories of stars. In any case buy a dictionary along with the book and hire an English teacher for this read because not even T.S Eliot could have pulled of something this confused.