How the movies got a past : a historiography of American cinema, 1894-1930 /
"This book presents a comprehensive survey of the rise of historiographical discourse on cinema in North America as it is reflected in publications, exhibitions, lectures and films about film as a technology, art and form of amusement, from its inception up to 1930. This first historiography of...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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New York, NY :
Oxford University Press,
[2023]
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | "This book presents a comprehensive survey of the rise of historiographical discourse on cinema in North America as it is reflected in publications, exhibitions, lectures and films about film as a technology, art and form of amusement, from its inception up to 1930. This first historiography of American movies creates a typology of genres of historical knowledge and examines the role that its articulation played in legitimating the moving image as a form of cultural heritage and a field of study. How did early studios seek to understand and promote their own activities as part of a brand-new form of entertainment with its own traditions, "founding fathers" and ambitions? How did early writers modulate between retrospection and analysis, between nostalgia and ballyhoo, between journalism and research into the fragments of the nascent film industry and what were their motivations and influence on subsequent historians? What rhetorical and material platforms were deployed to talk about and show the history of cinema and for what audiences were they meant? In teasing out answers to these and other questions, this book makes an argument for early cinema historiography as an emergent genre with its own conventions and goals instead of a "primitive" version of today's historical writing on the movies"-- |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xi, 394 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 0197689280 9780197689295 0197689299 9780197689301 0197689302 9780197689288 |