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Research Seminar: Professor Helen Hanson (University of Exeter), ‘Looking for Lela Simone: Genres of Industry Discourse and Production Histories of Classical Hollywood'

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Location: A0.28 (Millburn House)
Research Seminar: Professor Helen Hanson (University of Exeter), ‘Looking for Lela Simone: Genres of Industry Discourse and Production Histories of Classical Hollywood'
Date: 21/11/2018
Time: 4.30pm (followed by drinks reception)
Venue: A0.28 (Millbun House)
All welcome.

About: Despite her important contribution to classical Hollywood’s most polished golden age musical, Lela Simone is little known in film history. Undertaking music supervision for Arthur Freed’s MGM Unit (1944-1957) the German-born Simone displayed an aptitude for exacting technical supervision, overseeing pre-scoring and synchronisation of iconic musical numbers for which the Freed unit have become famous, including Singin’ in the Rain. Simone is little known because she worked behind the scenes, but also because her work might be labelled as ‘generic’, unexceptional compared to the ‘talent’ of stars or the ‘agency’ of producers or directors.

This paper will demonstrate the centrality of her work to the exemplary production of genre by the unit. Analysing archival and industrial sources, the paper will trace how genre operates within three interrelated areas of production history. Firstly, genre informed the classification of work roles above and below the line; secondly, genre shaped production routines, and thirdly, the shared conventions of technical crafts, such as work with sound and music, formed ‘genres of expertise’. These three aspects of genre are intertwined in Simone’s career, and the paper will examine the tensions between genre as unexceptional, and as representing the ‘best’ of classical Hollywood’s mode of production.

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