A master of subverting tropes with surgical precision, Elaine May forged a career in 1970s Hollywood with films like The Heartbreak Kid and Mikey and Nicky. In this volume of the Contemporary Film Directors series Elizabeth Alsop explores the director’s non-conformist and uncompromising vision while looking at May’s films against trends in classic and post-classical Hollywood.
Shaped by her background and success in the theatre, May brought the biting humour of her improv comedy to her filmmaking. But unfriendly media and a system hostile to both her methods and sensibility consigned her to 'director’s jail' after the failure of Ishtar. As Alsop moves through the filmmaker’s four movies, she tracks May’s inventive treatment of favorite themes like hapless male characters and the inanities of American culture. She also considers May’s work in relation to her multifaceted career as a writer and performer.
A compelling reconsideration of an iconoclast and original, Elaine May reveals how a surprisingly radical auteur created her trademark cinema of discomfort.
Elizabeth Alsop is assistant professor of communication and media at the CUNY School of Professional Studies and a faculty member in Film and Media Cultures at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Making Conversation in Modernist Fiction.
University of Illinois Press, 192pp, 14cm x 21cm, illustrated paperback, 2025
