(DOWNLOAD) "Into the Lion's Den: Joy Davidman and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Critical Essay)" by Mythlore " Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Into the Lion's Den: Joy Davidman and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Critical Essay)
- Author : Mythlore
- Release Date : January 22, 2011
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 201 KB
Description
By 1938 Jewish activist Joy Davidmann was a self-confessed atheist and strident Communist. The critical success of her volume of poetry, Letter to a Comrade (1938), gave proof both to her Communist convictions and her poetic prowess. (1) Within a short time of joining the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), Davidman, eager to use her talents as a writer, looked for a way to help. Since she had become a regular reader of the semiofficial weekly publication of the CPUSA, New Masses, she made her way to the offices of NM in New York City and offered her services. (2) Almost immediately she was brought on board as a poetry editor, and she threw herself at contributing to NM via both her own poetry and her publication of poems by others. (3) Poetry was not the only literary contribution Davidman made to NM; it was her facility as a book, theater, and movie reviewer--especially the latter--that best portrays her contribution to the cause. (4) However, from June through December 1939 there was a significant gap in Davidman's appearance in NM: she moved to Hollywood, lured by the $50 a week offered by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) as a part of its Junior Writer Project, an effort intended to develop young screenwriters. (5) In what follows, I explore why Davidman's tenure at MGM was unsuccessful, including her personal unhappiness and rejection of the Hollywood ethos as well as her later acerbic writings about the film industry, focusing particularly upon its political conservatism, its racism, and its sexism. I conclude with a brief note about how Davidman's experience in Hollywood influenced her maturation and eventual (and some might say unlikely) marriage to C.S. Lewis. The key insights into why Davidman was so unhappy in the Junior Writer Project come from the only two letters written during this time that survive. On July 18, 1939, after less than two months in Hollywood, she writes her friend James Still and admits to her unhappiness. (6) She begins by contrasting the physical environment of Hollywood and New York City: "Look at where I am! (7) It's horrible. I'm a New Yorker, used to crowds, strangers, loud noises and sudden explosions--but not to this" (Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman [Bone] 25). More problematic, however, is the unsavory ethos she finds in Hollywood:
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