Georgian-born Rouben Mamoulian (1897-1987) has significant claims to being one of classical Hollywood's most underrated directors. His piecemeal film career--completing only 16 features over 30 years--across a variety of genres and studios, as well as his famously aborted contributions to Laura, Porgy and Bess, and Cleopatra, give evidence to his vision's uncompromising strength.

Despite his much-cited affinity for the more solitary art of painting, Mamoulian was also a showman, perfectly suited to the popularization and adaptation of 'high art' forms and sources (Tolstoy, Thackeray, and the style of such painters as Goya, Velázquez and Benton). His value to Hollywood and Broadway as a synthesizer of forms has long been undervalued, as has his ability to draw together European and American influences, masculine and feminine sensibilities.

For a director who was brought to Hollywood to deal with the aesthetic crisis of sound's introduction, Mamoulian proved himself to be a peculiarly "cinematic" director, exploiting many of his scenarios for the pure visual and sound ideas they suggested. In a profound sense, he can also be regarded as an aesthetic and stylistic magpie who seldom, with the exception of the musical, made two films in one genre.

He is also a director fixated on the technological possibilities of cinema as a modern form: two-track sound recording and the mobile camera to "early" sound film (Applause); subjective viewpoints and special effects (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde); disembodied voiceover (City Streets); the zoom lens and asynchronous sound (Love Me Tonight); three-strip Technicolor (Becky Sharp) and its expressive and fully artistic use (Blood and Sand); and countless others.

Despite his landmark triumphs in the American theatre (Porgy, Oklahoma!, Carousel), where his status as one of the directorial greats is assured, it was only in the cinema that Mamoulian was able to explore fully his quest for a truly synthetic art form, seamlessly combining music, performance, painterly design and dynamism. Although his truly significant contribution lies in the magnificent run of six features he made at the start of his career (featuring such iconic stars as Garbo, Dietrich, Miriam Hopkins, Gary Cooper, and Fredric March), it is the patent artificiality of Mamoulian's later films--Blood and Sand, Summer Holiday, and Silk Stockings--and their abandonment to the rhythms of movement, colour, composition, and the body, that prove his fullest cinematic expression. Mamoulian remains one of a small number of directors who used Hollywood as a true studio environment.

Featured Works:

Applause (1929); City Streets (1931); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931); Love Me Tonight (1932); The Song of Songs (1933); Queen Christina (1933); We Live Again (1934); Becky Sharp (1935); The Gay Desperado (1936); High, Wide, and Handsome (1937); Golden Boy (1939); The Mark of Zorro (1940, pictured); Blood and Sand (1941); Rings on Her Fingers (1942); Summer Holiday (1948); Silk Stockings (1957); Rouben Mamoulian: The Golden Age of Broadway and Hollywood (Patrick Cazals, 2007)

Program information:

Rouben Mamoulian