Mamoulian

Abstract

The Armenian-American director Rouben Mamoulian remains one of the most under acknowledged filmmakers from Hollywood's Golden Age. With Applause (1929), Mamoulian restored motion to the movies by revolutionizing the technology of sound recording, freeing filmmaking from the static, cumbersome approach of the earliest talking pictures. He pioneered the use of many filmmaking tools taken for granted today, expanded the scope of special effects with his startling version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and directed the first full-color live action feature film, Becky Sharp (1935). Mamoulian shot one of the most memorable (and technically challenging) scenes in film history: the closing moments of Queen Christina (1934) as Greta Garbo gazed into an uncertain future, and continued to make artful entertainment with The Mark of Zorro (1940) and Blood and Sand (1941). Mamoulian also enjoyed an important career on Broadway as an innovative director, taking charge of the premieres of Porgy and Bess (1935), Oklahoma! (1943) and Carousel (1945). Mamoulian worked with many of the great names of stage and film, including Gary Cooper, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers.