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Who decides how, when, and where Americans fall in love and get married? Virginia Wexman's acute observations about movie stars and acting techniques show that Hollywood has often had the most powerful voice in demonstrating socially sanctioned ways of becoming a couple. Until now serious film critics have paid little attention to the impact of performance styles on American romance, and have often treated "patriarchy," "sexuality," and the "couple" as monolithic and unproblematic concepts. Wexman, however, shows how these notions have been periodically transformed in close association with the appearance, behavior, and persona of the stars of films such as The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Way Down East, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Sunset Boulevard, On the Waterfront, Nashville, House of Games, and Do the Right Thing. The author focuses first on the way in which traditional marriage norms relate to authorship (the Griffith-Gish collaboration) and genre (John Wayne and the Western). Looking at male and female stardom in terms of the development of "companionate marriage," she discusses the love goddess and the impact of method acting on Hollywood's ideals of maleness. Finally she considers the recent breakdown of the ideal of monogamous marriage in relation to Hollywood's experimentation with self-reflexive acting styles. Creating the Couple is must reading for film scholars and enthusiasts, and it will fascinate everyone interested in the changing relationships of men and women in modern culture.

Love in motion pictures. --- Marriage in motion pictures. --- Motion picture acting. --- Motion pictures --- Social aspects --- Acting. --- Actor. --- Affective memory. --- Anglo. --- Broken Blossoms. --- Chapter 1 (House of Cards). --- Chapter Two (play). --- Character (arts). --- Christian Dior. --- Cinema of the United States. --- Classical Hollywood cinema. --- Close-up. --- Colonization. --- Consideration. --- Courtship. --- D. W. Griffith. --- Division of labour. --- Do the Right Thing. --- Elia Kazan. --- Endogamy. --- Eroticism. --- Exogamy. --- Fan magazine. --- Femininity. --- Film noir. --- Filmmaking. --- Gary Cooper. --- Gender role. --- Genre. --- Hegemony. --- Hermann Broch. --- Hollywood Star. --- Homoeroticism. --- Homosexuality. --- House of Games. --- Ideology. --- Improvisation. --- Incest. --- Individualism. --- Individuation. --- Ingrid Bergman. --- Lauren Bacall. --- Libido. --- Lifestyle (sociology). --- Male bonding. --- Margaret Herrick Library. --- Marlon Brando. --- Marsha Norman. --- Masculinity. --- Mean Streets. --- Melodrama. --- Method acting. --- Mexicans. --- Miscegenation. --- Monogamy. --- Montgomery Clift. --- Moscow Art Theatre. --- My Darling Clementine. --- Narcissism. --- Narrative. --- Nobility. --- On the Waterfront. --- Oppression. --- Orphans of the Storm. --- Patriarchy. --- Person. --- Personhood. --- Philosophy. --- Playwright. --- Post-structuralism. --- Potentiality and actuality. --- Psychoanalysis. --- Public figure. --- Publicity. --- Richard Dyer. --- Role-playing. --- Romantic hero. --- Royal intermarriage. --- Sam Spade. --- Satire. --- Self-actualization. --- Separate spheres. --- Sex differences in humans. --- Sexual desire. --- Struggle (TV series). --- Suggestion. --- Sunset Boulevard (musical). --- Superiority (short story). --- Tall in the Saddle. --- Terminology. --- The Big Sleep. --- The Maltese Falcon (novel). --- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. --- The Mothering Heart. --- The Other Hand. --- War film. --- Way Down East. --- Western (genre). --- White's. --- Writing.