Hollywood la mythique ou le point de vue de ses vétérans dans Don’t Come Knocking, The Holiday et Man in the Chair

Maryline Kautzmann

Abstract :
This article sets out to investigate the changing, yet enduring myth of Hollywood as it reveals itself in three movies released between 2005 and 2007 : Wim Wenders’ Don’t Come Knocking, The Holiday by rom-com director Nancy Meyers and Man in the Chair, an independent movie directed by Michael Shroeder. All three revolve around a very similar type of character: the Hollywood old-timer, once a Hollywood legend, now a forgotten “geezer”. The key to the myth-debunking process the movies engage in is the disenchanted and bitter gaze these Hollywood veterans cast on the institution that has forsaken them. Nonetheless, the attempt at undermining the myth of Hollywood seems inevitably thwarted at the end of each movie, as Hollywood appears not only to have retained its mythical glow but also to have acquired a new mythical dimension. Based on an analysis of these three movies this paper will explore the way in which, each of them, oscillates between deflating and emphasizing the mythical aura that surrounds the dream factory, before eventually reasserting the very myth of Hollywood.
Published : 2015-06-09

Citation

Maryline Kautzmann, « Hollywood la mythique ou le point de vue de ses vétérans dans Don’t Come Knocking, The Holiday et Man in the Chair », Cycnos, 2015-06-09. URL : http://epi-revel.univ-cotedazur.fr/publication/item/197