American Cinema of the 1910s: Themes and Variations (Screen Decades: American Culture/American Cinema) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813544459 ISBN 13: 9780813544458

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 2009

Synopsis

It was during the teens that filmmaking truly came into its own. Notably, the migration of studios to the West Coast established a connection between moviemaking and the exoticism of Hollywood.

The essays in American Cinema of the 1910s explore the rapid developments of the decade that began with D. W. Griffith's unrivaled one-reelers. By mid-decade, multi-reel feature films were profoundly reshaping the industry and deluxe theaters were built to attract the broadest possible audience. Stars like Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks became vitally important and companies began writing high-profile contracts to secure them. With the outbreak of World War I, the political, economic, and industrial groundwork was laid for American cinema's global dominance. By the end of the decade, filmmaking had become a true industry, complete with vertical integration, efficient specialization and standardization of practices, and self-regulatory agencies.

About this title

About the Author:

Charlie Keil is an associate professor in the history department and the director of the Cinema Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Early American Cinema in Transition: Story, Style and Filmmaking, 1907 1913. Ben Singer is an associate professor of film in the department of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of Melodrama and Modernity: Early Sensational Cinema and Its Contexts.

Review:

“There is nothing like this series. Screen Decades firmly situates American cinema in the realms of material culture, popular culture, cultural narrative, reception analysis, and industrial history.”

(American Quarterly)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0813544459
• ISBN 13: 9780813544458
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296
• Editor: Charlie Keil, Ben Singer