Fred Zinnemann and the Cinema of Resistance

Fred Zinnemann directed some of the mostacclaimed and controversial films of the twentiethcentury, yet he has been a shadowy presence inHollywood history. In Fred Zinnemann and the Cinemaof Resistance, J. E. Smyth reveals the intellectualpassion behind some of the most powerful filmsever made about the rise and resistance to fascismand the legacy of the Second World War, from TheSeventh Cross and The Search to High Noon, FromHere to Eternity, and Julia. Smyth’s book is the firstto draw upon Zinnemann’s extensive papers at theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences andbrings Fred Zinnemann’s vision, voice, and filmpractice to life.In his engagement with the defining historicalstruggles of the twentieth century, Zinnemannfought his own battles with the Hollywood studiosystem, the critics, and a public bent on forgetting.Zinnemann’s films explore the role of womenand communists in the antifascist resistance, theWest’s support of Franco after the Spanish CivilWar, and the darker side of America’s national heritage.Smyth reconstructs a complex and conflictedportrait of Zinnemann’s cinema of resistance,examining his sketches, script annotations, editingand production notes, and personal letters. Illustratedwith seventy black-and-white images fromSmyth’s collection, Fred Zinnemann and the Cinemaof Resistance discusses the director’s professionaland personal relationships with Spencer Tracy,Montgomery Clift, Audrey Hepburn, VanessaRedgrave, and Gary Cooper; the critical reactionto his revisionist Western, High Noon; his battlesover the censorship of From Here to Eternity, TheNun’s Story, and Behold a Pale Horse; his unrealizedhistory of the communist Revolution in China,Man’s Fate; and the controversial study of politicalassassination, The Day of the Jackal. In this intense,richly textured narrative, Smyth enters the mind ofone of Hollywood’s master directors, redefiningour knowledge of his artistic vision and practice.J. E. SMYTH is associate professor of history andcomparative American studies at the Universityof Warwick (United Kingdom). She is the authorof Reconstructing American Historical Cinema from'Cimarron' to 'Citizen Kane' and Edna Ferber’sHollywood: American Fictions of Gender, Race, andHistory and is the editor of Hollywood and the AmericanHistorical Film.