Considering films such as
The Last Picture Show,
Paper Moon,
The Bad News Bears, and
The Witches of Eastwick, it argues that Platt’s construction of their visual palette and mise-en-scène was so creative and so comprehensive that it can be considered authorial.
“[Aaron Hunter] charts Platt’s substantial contribution to the look of New Hollywood cinema through films like The Last Picture Show (1971) and Thieves Like Us (1974). Hunter’s book is an eye-opener, depicting production design as a collaborative role that cuts across every department from locations to costumes to script. In the 1970s, it was also an underappreciated and underpaid job.” (Nancy M. West, LA Review of Books, lareviewofbooks.org, April 13, 2022)
Aaron Hunter lectures in the department of film at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. His monograph Authoring Hal Ashby: The Myth of the New Hollywood Auteur (2016) constructs an alternative, multiple-authorship framework for understanding New Hollywood, an approach he continues in this work on Polly Platt. His collection Women and New Hollywood, co-edited with Martha Shearer, will be published in 2022.