{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/81489"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/81489","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Fred Zinnemann and the Documentary Fiction Film","abstract":"This dissertation examines the history, genesis, and documentary ethos that inform some of Fred Zinnemann's key films that synthesize elements of the documentary film and the Hollywood narrative film into a hybrid form I call the documentary fiction. The study addresses a lack of critical attention to Zinnemann's career by setting up a framework within which to appreciate his films. Chapter 1 demonstrates that, although most of Zinnemann's films, such as High Noon (1952) and From Here to Eternity (1953), were critically and popularly well-received, his social realism, expressing a liberal, progressive outlook, was at odds with the generally reactionary critical milieu created by the ascendant auteur critics of the fifties. In Chapter 2, I lay the groundwork for a reevaluation of Zinnemann's early films, which expressed documentary impulses without being either traditional documentaries or the semidocumentaries of the period. In addition, I deepen the historical context for Zinnemann's postwar films as unique expressions of the documentary impulse by discussing the use of documentary signifiers and conventions in some of the better known semidocumentaries--The House on 92nd Street (1946) and The Naked City (1948), for example. Chapter 3 treats the production history of Fred Zinnemann's The Wave (1937) as a means of establishing the case for Zinnemann's co-authorship of a film whose authorship has hitherto been solely credited to its producer and photographer, Paul Strand, and giving a reading of the film which relates it to Zinnemann's later documentary fictions. Chapter 4 isolates the six shared characteristics that define the films I call Zinnemann's documentary fictions and discusses their permutations in The Search (1948), The Men (1950), and Teresa (1951). Chapter 5 concludes the study with an analysis of A Man for All Seasons, which produces a richer understanding of how this film, sometimes seen as an anomaly for the director of From Here to Eternity and High Noon, fits into the Zinnemann canon.","abstract_html":"This dissertation examines the history, genesis, and documentary ethos that inform some of Fred Zinnemann's key films that synthesize elements of the documentary film and the Hollywood narrative film into a hybrid form I call the documentary fiction. The study addresses a lack of critical attention to Zinnemann's career by setting up a framework within which to appreciate his films. Chapter 1 demonstrates that, although most of Zinnemann's films, such as High Noon (1952) and From Here to Eternity (1953), were critically and popularly well-received, his social realism, expressing a liberal, progressive outlook, was at odds with the generally reactionary critical milieu created by the ascendant auteur critics of the fifties. In Chapter 2, I lay the groundwork for a reevaluation of Zinnemann's early films, which expressed documentary impulses without being either traditional documentaries or the semidocumentaries of the period. In addition, I deepen the historical context for Zinnemann's postwar films as unique expressions of the documentary impulse by discussing the use of documentary signifiers and conventions in some of the better known semidocumentaries--The House on 92nd Street (1946) and The Naked City (1948), for example. Chapter 3 treats the production history of Fred Zinnemann's The Wave (1937) as a means of establishing the case for Zinnemann's co-authorship of a film whose authorship has hitherto been solely credited to its producer and photographer, Paul Strand, and giving a reading of the film which relates it to Zinnemann's later documentary fictions. Chapter 4 isolates the six shared characteristics that define the films I call Zinnemann's documentary fictions and discusses their permutations in The Search (1948), The Men (1950), and Teresa (1951). Chapter 5 concludes the study with an analysis of A Man for All Seasons, which produces a richer understanding of how this film, sometimes seen as an anomaly for the director of From Here to Eternity and High Noon, fits into the Zinnemann canon.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Super, Joel Nicholas"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Carringer, Robert L."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2015,"date_issued":"2015-09-25T20:15:41Z","date_published":"2015-09-25T20:15:41Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:26:16Z","subjects":["Biography"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["(MiAaPQ)AAI9904603"],"render_values":[{"text":"(MiAaPQ)AAI9904603","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/81489","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Carringer, Robert L."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Super, Joel Nicholas"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2015-09-25T20:15:41Z","10000-01-01","1998"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Biography"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/81489","(MiAaPQ)AAI9904603"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["This dissertation examines the history, genesis, and documentary ethos that inform some of Fred Zinnemann's key films that synthesize elements of the documentary film and the Hollywood narrative film into a hybrid form I call the documentary fiction. The study addresses a lack of critical attention to Zinnemann's career by setting up a framework within which to appreciate his films. Chapter 1 demonstrates that, although most of Zinnemann's films, such as High Noon (1952) and From Here to Eternity (1953), were critically and popularly well-received, his social realism, expressing a liberal, progressive outlook, was at odds with the generally reactionary critical milieu created by the ascendant auteur critics of the fifties. In Chapter 2, I lay the groundwork for a reevaluation of Zinnemann's early films, which expressed documentary impulses without being either traditional documentaries or the semidocumentaries of the period. In addition, I deepen the historical context for Zinnemann's postwar films as unique expressions of the documentary impulse by discussing the use of documentary signifiers and conventions in some of the better known semidocumentaries--The House on 92nd Street (1946) and The Naked City (1948), for example. Chapter 3 treats the production history of Fred Zinnemann's The Wave (1937) as a means of establishing the case for Zinnemann's co-authorship of a film whose authorship has hitherto been solely credited to its producer and photographer, Paul Strand, and giving a reading of the film which relates it to Zinnemann's later documentary fictions. Chapter 4 isolates the six shared characteristics that define the films I call Zinnemann's documentary fictions and discusses their permutations in The Search (1948), The Men (1950), and Teresa (1951). Chapter 5 concludes the study with an analysis of A Man for All Seasons, which produces a richer understanding of how this film, sometimes seen as an anomaly for the director of From Here to Eternity and High Noon, fits into the Zinnemann canon.","Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-25T20:15:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4848 bytes, checksum: 96035ab3f5e1c23cc7138a224ce498bd (MD5) 9904603.pdf: 16101008 bytes, checksum: 21a6c00a063e195574ad15943170dc89 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1998","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 82770 Lift date: Forever Reason: Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","U of I Only","302 p.","Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Fred Zinnemann and the Documentary Fiction Film"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Carringer, Robert L."],"dc:creator":["Super, Joel Nicholas"],"dc:date":["2015-09-25T20:15:41Z","10000-01-01","1998"],"dc:description":["This dissertation examines the history, genesis, and documentary ethos that inform some of Fred Zinnemann's key films that synthesize elements of the documentary film and the Hollywood narrative film into a hybrid form I call the documentary fiction. The study addresses a lack of critical attention to Zinnemann's career by setting up a framework within which to appreciate his films. Chapter 1 demonstrates that, although most of Zinnemann's films, such as High Noon (1952) and From Here to Eternity (1953), were critically and popularly well-received, his social realism, expressing a liberal, progressive outlook, was at odds with the generally reactionary critical milieu created by the ascendant auteur critics of the fifties. In Chapter 2, I lay the groundwork for a reevaluation of Zinnemann's early films, which expressed documentary impulses without being either traditional documentaries or the semidocumentaries of the period. In addition, I deepen the historical context for Zinnemann's postwar films as unique expressions of the documentary impulse by discussing the use of documentary signifiers and conventions in some of the better known semidocumentaries--The House on 92nd Street (1946) and The Naked City (1948), for example. Chapter 3 treats the production history of Fred Zinnemann's The Wave (1937) as a means of establishing the case for Zinnemann's co-authorship of a film whose authorship has hitherto been solely credited to its producer and photographer, Paul Strand, and giving a reading of the film which relates it to Zinnemann's later documentary fictions. Chapter 4 isolates the six shared characteristics that define the films I call Zinnemann's documentary fictions and discusses their permutations in The Search (1948), The Men (1950), and Teresa (1951). Chapter 5 concludes the study with an analysis of A Man for All Seasons, which produces a richer understanding of how this film, sometimes seen as an anomaly for the director of From Here to Eternity and High Noon, fits into the Zinnemann canon.","Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-25T20:15:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4848 bytes, checksum: 96035ab3f5e1c23cc7138a224ce498bd (MD5) 9904603.pdf: 16101008 bytes, checksum: 21a6c00a063e195574ad15943170dc89 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1998","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 82770 Lift date: Forever Reason: Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","U of I Only","302 p.","Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998."],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/81489","(MiAaPQ)AAI9904603"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:subject":["Biography"],"dc:title":["Fred Zinnemann and the Documentary Fiction Film"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:26:16Z"}