Defining Cinema: Rouben Mamoulian and Hollywood Film Style, 1929-1957 takes a holistic look at Mamoulian's oeuvre by examining both his stage and his screen work, and also brings together insights from his correspondence, his theories on film, and analysis of the films themselves. It presents a filmmaker whose work was innovative and exciting, who pushed hard on cinema's potential as an artform, and who in many ways helped move cinema towards the kind of entertainment that it remains today.