This work identifies 436 American silent films released between 1909 and 1929 that engaged the issues of militant labor and revolutionary radicalism. It begins with an extended introduction and analytical chapters that investigate the ways in which the American motion picture industry portrayed the interrelationships between labor radicals, exploitative capitalists, socialist idealists and Bolsheviks during this critical twenty-year period. Each entry contains a detailed plot synopsis, citations to primary sources, coding indicating the presence or absence of 14 predominant discernible biases (including anti- and pro-capitalism, socialism, revolution and labor), and subject coding keyed to 64 related terms and concepts (including agitators, Bolshevism, bombs, female radicals, militias, mobs, political refugees, and strikes). These statistical data included in the filmography are presented in a series of charts and are fully integrated into the historical-critical text. Total number and percentage statistics for the instances of these coded biases and traits are given per year, per era, and overall.
Silent Film Adaptations of Novels by British and American Women Writers, 1903–1929 focuses on fifty-three silent film adaptations of the novels of acclaimed authors George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Mary Shelley, Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Willa Cather, and Edith Wharton. Many of the films are unknown or dismissed, and most of them are degraded, destroyed, or lost—burned in warehouse fires, spontaneously combusted in storage cans, or quietly turned to dust. Their content and production and distribution details are reconstructed through archival resources as individual narratives that, when considered collectively, constitute a broader narrative of lost knowledge—a fragmented and buried early twentieth-century story now reclaimed and retold for the first time to a twenty-first-century audience. This collective narrative also demonstrates the extent to which the adaptations are intertextually and ideologically entangled with concurrently released early “woman’s films” to re-promote and re-instill the norm of idealized white, married, domesticated womanhood during a time of extraordinary cultural change for women. Retelling this lost narrative also allows for a reassessment of the place and function of the adaptations in the development of the silent film industry and as cinematic precedent for the hundreds of sound adaptations of the literary texts of these eight women writers produced from 1931 to the 2020s.
Giorgio Bertellini traces the origins of American cinema's century-long fascination with Italy and Italian immigrants to the popularity of the pre-photographic aesthetic—the picturesque. Once associated with landscape painting in northern Europe, the picturesque came to symbolize Mediterranean Europe through comforting views of distant landscapes and exotic characters. Taking its cue from a picturesque stage backdrop from The Godfather Part II, Italy in Early American Cinema shows how this aesthetic was transferred from 19th-century American painters to early 20th-century American filmmakers. Italy in Early American Cinema offers readings of early films that pay close attention to how landscape representations that were related to narrative settings and filmmaking locations conveyed distinct ideas about racial difference and national destiny.
This book is the first comprehensive and systematic study of cross-class romance films throughout the history of American cinema. It provides vivid discussions of these romantic films, analyses their normative patterns and thematic concerns, traces how they were shaped by inequalities of gender and class in American society, and explains why they were especially popular from World War I through the roaring twenties and the Great Depression. In the vast majority of cross-class romance films the female is poor or from the working class, the male is wealthy or from the upper class, and the romance ends successfully in marriage or the promise of marriage.
The second edition of Movies and American Society is a comprehensive collection of essays and primary documents that explore the ways in which movies have changed—and been changed by—American society from 1905 to the present. Each chapter includes an introduction, discussion questions, an essay examining the issues of the period, primary documents, and a list of further reading and screenings Includes a new chapter on “American Film in the Age of Terror” and new essays for Chapter 9 (“Race, Violence, and Film”) and Chapter 13 (“Hollywood Goes Global”), as well as updated Reading and Screenings sections Discusses all the major periods in American film history from the first nickelodeons to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the globalization of Hollywood Demonstrates the unique influence of movies on all aspects of American culture, from ideology, politics, and gender to class, war, and race relations Engaging and accessible for students, with jargon-free essays and primary documents that show social practices and controversies as well as the fun and cultural influence of movies and movie-going
American history has always been an irresistible source of inspiration for filmmakers, and today, for good or ill, most Americans'sense of the past likely comes more from Hollywood than from the works of historians. In important films such as The Birth of a Nation (1915), Roots (1977), Apocalypse Now (1979), and Saving Private Ryan (1998), how much is entertainment and how much is rooted in historical fact? In The Columbia Companion to American History on Film, more than seventy scholars consider the gap between history and Hollywood. They examine how filmmakers have presented and interpreted the most important events, topics, eras, and figures in the American past, often comparing the film versions of events with the interpretations of the best historians who have explored the topic. Divided into eight broad categories—Eras; Wars and Other Major Events; Notable People; Groups; Institutions and Movements; Places; Themes and Topics; and Myths and Heroes—the volume features extensive cross-references, a filmography (of discussed and relevant films), notes, and a bibliography of selected historical works on each subject. The Columbia Companion to American History on Film is also an important resource for teachers, with extensive information for research or for course development appropriate for both high school and college students. Though each essay reflects the unique body of film and print works covering the subject at hand, every essay addresses several fundamental questions: What are the key films on this topic? What sources did the filmmaker use, and how did the film deviate (or remain true to) its sources? How have film interpretations of a particular historical topic changed, and what sorts of factors—technological, social, political, historiographical—have affected their evolution? Have filmmakers altered the historical record with a view to enhancing drama or to enhance the "truth" of their putative message?
Emerging from Inside Film, a project that helps prisoners and people on probation make their own films, this book discusses the need for working class people to represent themselves and challenge mainstream stereotypes and assumptions about them. This project gave prisoners and parolees the technical skills necessary to make their own films and tell their own stories in order to counter the ways they have been misrepresented. The author demonstrates that film and television are key means by which socioeconomically marginalized groups are classified according to hegemonic norms, as well as the ways such groups can undermine these misrepresentations through their use of the media. As a theoretical reflection on the Inside Film project and the relationship between filmmaking and education, this book explores what radical pedagogy looks like in action.
In Hollywood Left and Right, Steven J. Ross tells a story that has escaped public attention: the emergence of Hollywood as a vital center of political life and the important role that movie stars have played in shaping the course of American politics. Ever since the film industry relocated to Hollywood early in the twentieth century, it has had an outsized influence on American politics. Through compelling larger-than-life figures in American cinema--Charlie Chaplin, Louis B. Mayer, Edward G. Robinson, George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Harry Belafonte, Jane Fonda, Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty, and Arnold Schwarzenegger--Hollywood Left and Right reveals how the film industry's engagement in politics has been longer, deeper, and more varied than most people would imagine. As shown in alternating chapters, the Left and the Right each gained ascendancy in Tinseltown at different times. From Chaplin, whose movies almost always displayed his leftist convictions, to Schwarzenegger's nearly seamless transition from action blockbusters to the California governor's mansion, Steven J. Ross traces the intersection of Hollywood and political activism from the early twentieth century to the present. Hollywood Left and Right challenges the commonly held belief that Hollywood has always been a bastion of liberalism. The real story, as Ross shows in this passionate and entertaining work, is far more complicated. First, Hollywood has a longer history of conservatism than liberalism. Second, and most surprising, while the Hollywood Left was usually more vocal and visible, the Right had a greater impact on American political life, capturing a senate seat (Murphy), a governorship (Schwarzenegger), and the ultimate achievement, the Presidency (Reagan).
The relationship between Jews and the United States is necessarily complex: Jews have been instrumental in shaping American culture and, of course, Jewish culture and religion have likewise been profoundly recast in the United States, especially in the period following World War II. A major focus of this work is to consider the Jewish role in American life as well as the American role in shaping Jewish life. This fifth volume of the Casden Institute's annual review is organized along five broad themes: politics, values, image, education and culture.
In the United States, social class ranks with gender, race, and ethnicity in determining the values, activities, political behavior, and life chances of individuals. Most scholars agree on the importance of class, although they often disagree on what it is and how it impacts Americans. This A-Z encyclopedia, the first to focus on class in the United States, surveys the breadth of class strata throughout our history, for high school students to the general public. Class is illuminated in 525 essay entries on significant people, terms, theories, programs, institutions, eras, ethnic groups, places, and much more. This useful set is an authoritative, fascinating source for in-demand information on key aspects of our culture and society and helps researchers to narrow down a broad topic. Class is revealed from angles that often intersect: through history, with entries such as Founding Fathers, the Industrial Revolution, Westward Expansion; through economics, with entries such as Dot.com Bubble, Robber Barons, Chicago School of Economics, Lottery, Wage Slaves, Economic Equal Opportunity Act, Stock Market, Inheritance Taxes, Wal-Mart, Welfare; through social indicators such as Conspicuous Consumption, the Hamptons, WASP, Homelessness, Social Climbing; through politics with entries such as Anarchism, Braceros, Heritage Foundation, Communist Party, Kennedy Family; and through culture through entries such as Country Music, The Great Gatsby, Television, and Studs Terkel. Class is also approached from ethnic, sexual, religious, educational, and regional angles. Special features include an introduction, timeline, suggested reading per entry, cross-references, reader's guide to topics, and thorough index. Sample entries: Immigration, Education, Labor Movement, Pink-Collar Workers, AFL-CIO, Strikes, Great Depression, Jacob Riis, Literature, the Rockefellers, Slavery, Music, Academia, Family, Suburbia, McMansions, Taxation, Segregation, Racism, Ivy League, Robber Barons, Philanthropists, Socialites, Religion, Welfare, the American Dream, Dot.com Millionaires, Equal Opportunity, Founding Fathers, Wage Slaves, Industrial Revolution, Capitalism, Economics, Appalachia, Horse Racing, Gender, Communist Party, Country Clubs, Religion, American Indians, Conspicuous Consumption, Studs Terkel, Film, Class-Consciousness, Work Ethic, Media, Television, Puritans, Homelessness, Status Symbols, Assimilation/Melting Pot, Art, Westward Expansion, Poverty, The Great Gatsby, Stock Market, Working Poor, Gated Communities, the Hamptons, Social Climbing, Crime, Lottery, Elitism, WASP, American Dream, Noam Chomsky, Fortune Magazine
