Americanizing the Movies and Movie-Mad Audiences

1910-1914 (book in English)

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by Richard Abel

Type

Studies

Subject

Silent Cinema

Keywords

history of cinema, silent cinema, early cinema

Publishing date

2006

Publisher

University of California Press

Collection

(non-series)

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 392 pages • 27 €
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN-10
ISBN-13

0-520-24743-4
978-0-520-24743-7

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Book Presentation:
This engaging, deeply researched study provides the richest and most nuanced picture we have to date of cinema-both movies and movie-going-in the early 1910s. At the same time, it makes clear the profound relationship between early cinema and the construction of a national identity in this important transitional period in the United States. Richard Abel looks closely at sensational melodramas, including westerns (cowboy, cowboy-girl, and Indian pictures), Civil War films (especially girl-spy films), detective films, and animal pictures-all popular genres of the day that have received little critical attention. He simultaneously analyzes film distribution and exhibition practices in order to reconstruct a context for understanding moviegoing at a time when American cities were coming to grips with new groups of immigrants and women working outside the home. Drawing from a wealth of research in archive prints, the trade press, fan magazines, newspaper advertising, reviews, and syndicated columns-the latter of which highlight the importance of the emerging star system-Abel sheds new light on the history of the film industry, on working-class and immigrant culture at the turn of the century, and on the process of imaging a national community.

See the publisher website: University of California Press