The monthly roundup of film and television publications compiled by Simon Baker, Institute of Historical Research, & published here at the BUFVC by Linda Kaye.

The Red Shoes and Soviet film feature in a special issue of Journal of Design History entitled “Between Avant-Garde and Commercialism: Reconsidering Émigrés and Design”, First up, Engelke and Hochscherf  in Colour Magic at Pinewood: Hein Heckroth, The Archers and Avant-Garde Production Design in The Red Shoes (1948) considers the impact of émigré artist Heckroth’s work on the film. Christophe Hesse in Home at a Distance: The Design of Nazi Germany in Exile Films from the Soviet Union looks at the work of German émigrés in Russia and their stand against fascism.

The above articles nicely complements the Rebecca Prime book Hollywood exiles in Europe: the blacklist and cold war film culture which featured in last month’s Roundup.

Moving to costume design, Gatley and Morris look at the 2013 Hollywood Costume exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert museum which explored the creation of character in film through costume design. The influence of Hollywood on costume is explored in Scarborough and Hunt-Hurst’s The Making of an Erogenous Zone: The Role of Exoticism, Dance, and the Movies in Midriff Exposure, 1900–1946. While looking at the influence of fashion magazines like Vogue, they also look at production codes for film and the influence of the codes on moral dress standards.

Picking up on magazines, Higashi’s Stars, Fans, and Consumption in the 1950s Reading Photoplay, looks at the fan magazine which documented the lifestyle of the stars so that fans could live like them. The magazine, by offering beauty tips, fashion layouts, sewing patterns and decorating advice, led to changing social habits regarding female conduct and the new relationship between stars and fans.

Media Screen Roundup (Mar 2015) IHR-BUFVC (PDF)