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The years between 1908 and 1917 witnessed what may have been the most significant transformation in American film history. During this "transitional era," widespread changes affected film form and film genres, filmmaking practices and industry structure, exhibition sites, and audience demographics. By the end of the period, cinema had moved toward the shape it would assume for decades under the studio system. This collection of new essays by prominent film scholars traces these myriad changes, presenting the most detailed and comprehensive portrait yet of this pivotal stage in cinema's development.
Topics under discussion include debates about cinema's place in American culture; the influence of an evolving feature format; the role of state censorship; emerging genres and audiences; onscreen depictions of gender, race, and nationality; changing exhibition practices and theater locales; and the emergence of Hollywood as the nation's film capital.
Contributors: Richard Abel, Constance Balides, Ben Brewster, Scott Curtis, Lee Grieveson, Tom Gunning, Charlie Keil, J. A. Lindstrom, Roberta E. Pearson, Jennifer Lynn Peterson, Lauren Rabinovitz, Ben Singer, Shelley Stamp, Jacqueline Stewart
Topics under discussion include debates about cinema's place in American culture; the influence of an evolving feature format; the role of state censorship; emerging genres and audiences; onscreen depictions of gender, race, and nationality; changing exhibition practices and theater locales; and the emergence of Hollywood as the nation's film capital.
Contributors: Richard Abel, Constance Balides, Ben Brewster, Scott Curtis, Lee Grieveson, Tom Gunning, Charlie Keil, J. A. Lindstrom, Roberta E. Pearson, Jennifer Lynn Peterson, Lauren Rabinovitz, Ben Singer, Shelley Stamp, Jacqueline Stewart
Price: $29.95
Pages: 381
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Publication Date:
12 July 2004
ISBN: 9780520937543
Format: eBook
List of Illustrations and Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART 1. DEFINING TRANSITION: REVISION AND DEBATE
1. Systematizing the Electric Message: Narrative Form, Gender, and Modernity in The Lonedale Operator
Tom Gunning
2. "To Here from Modernity": Style, Historiography, and Transitional Cinema
Charlie Keil
3. Periodization of Early Cinema
Ben Brewster
4. Feature Films, Variety Programs, and the Crisis of the Small Exhibitor
Ben Singer
PART 2. THE TRANSITIONAL SCREEN: NEW GENRES, CULTURAL SHIFTS
5. What Happened in the Transition? Reading Race, Gender, and Labor between the Shots
Jacqueline Stewart
6. The "Imagined Community" of the Western, 1910–1913
Richard Abel
7. The Coney Island Comedies: Bodies and Slapstick at the Amusement Park and the Movies
Lauren Rabinovitz
8. Travelogues and Early Nonfiction Film: Education in the School of Dreams
Jennifer Lynn Peterson
PART 3. THE INDUSTRY IN TRANSITION: CHANGING INSTITUTIONS AND AUDIENCES
9. Where Development Has Just Begun: Nickelodeon Location, Moving Picture Audiences, and Neighborhood Development in Chicago
J. A. Lindstrom
10. A House Divided: The MPPC in Transition
Scott Curtis
11. Not Harmless Entertainment: State Censorship and Cinema in the Transitional Era
Lee Grieveson
12. Cinema under the Sign of Money: Commercialized Leisure, Economies of Abundance, and Pecuniary Madness, 1905–1915
Constance Balides
13. The Menace of the Movies: Cinema’s Challenge to the Theater in the Transitional Period
Roberta E. Pearson
14. "It’s a Long Way to Filmland": Starlets, Screen Hopefuls, and Extras in Early Hollywood
Shelley Stamp
List of Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART 1. DEFINING TRANSITION: REVISION AND DEBATE
1. Systematizing the Electric Message: Narrative Form, Gender, and Modernity in The Lonedale Operator
Tom Gunning
2. "To Here from Modernity": Style, Historiography, and Transitional Cinema
Charlie Keil
3. Periodization of Early Cinema
Ben Brewster
4. Feature Films, Variety Programs, and the Crisis of the Small Exhibitor
Ben Singer
PART 2. THE TRANSITIONAL SCREEN: NEW GENRES, CULTURAL SHIFTS
5. What Happened in the Transition? Reading Race, Gender, and Labor between the Shots
Jacqueline Stewart
6. The "Imagined Community" of the Western, 1910–1913
Richard Abel
7. The Coney Island Comedies: Bodies and Slapstick at the Amusement Park and the Movies
Lauren Rabinovitz
8. Travelogues and Early Nonfiction Film: Education in the School of Dreams
Jennifer Lynn Peterson
PART 3. THE INDUSTRY IN TRANSITION: CHANGING INSTITUTIONS AND AUDIENCES
9. Where Development Has Just Begun: Nickelodeon Location, Moving Picture Audiences, and Neighborhood Development in Chicago
J. A. Lindstrom
10. A House Divided: The MPPC in Transition
Scott Curtis
11. Not Harmless Entertainment: State Censorship and Cinema in the Transitional Era
Lee Grieveson
12. Cinema under the Sign of Money: Commercialized Leisure, Economies of Abundance, and Pecuniary Madness, 1905–1915
Constance Balides
13. The Menace of the Movies: Cinema’s Challenge to the Theater in the Transitional Period
Roberta E. Pearson
14. "It’s a Long Way to Filmland": Starlets, Screen Hopefuls, and Extras in Early Hollywood
Shelley Stamp
List of Contributors
Index