New Perspectives on Early Cinema History: Concepts, Approaches, Audiences

In this book, editors Mario Slugan and Daniël Biltereyst present a theoretical reconceptualization of early cinema. To do so, they highlight the latest methods and tools for analysis, and cast new light on the experience of early cinema through the application of these concepts and methods.

The international host of contributors evaluate examples of early cinema across the globe, including The May Irwin Kiss (1896), Un homme de têtes (1900), The Terrible Turkish Executioner (1904) and Tom Tom the Piper's Son (1905). In doing so, they address the periodization of the era, emphasizing the recent boon in the availability of primary materials, the rise of digital technologies, the developments in new cinema history, and the persistence of some conceptualizations as key incentives for rethinking early cinema in theoretical and methodological terms.

They go on to highlight cutting-edge approaches to the study of early cinema, including the use of the Mediathread Platform, the formation of new datasets with the help of digital technologies, and exploring the early era in non-western cultures. Finally, the contributors revisit early cinema audiences and exhibition contexts by investigating some of the earliest screenings in Denmark and the US, exploring the details of black cinema going in Harlem, and examining exhibition practices in Germany.

Daniël Biltereyst is Professor in Film and Media Studies at Ghent University, Belgium. He is editor of Mapping Movie Magazines (2020), The Routledge Companion to New Cinema Audiences (2019, with R. Maltby and P. Meers), Moralizing Cinema: Film, Catholicism and Power (2015, with Daniela Treveri Gennari), Silencing Cinema: Film Censorship around the World (2013, with R. Vande Winkel), Cinema, Audiences and Modernity (2012, with R. Maltby and P. Meers) and Explorations in New Cinema History (2011, with R. Maltby and P. Meers).

Daniel Biltereyst is Professor in Film and Media Studies at the Department of Communication Studies, Ghent University, Belgium. He is the co-editor of books including Explorations in New Cinema History (2011), Cinema, Audiences and Modernity (2012), Silencing Cinema: Film Censorship around the World (2013), Moralizing Cinema: Film, Catholicism and Power (2015), and The Routledge Companion to New Cinema Audiences (2019).