Screen Ages: A Survey of American Cinema

ISBN-13: 9780415535526 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 300 str.

John Alberti

Opis

Screen Ages is a valuable guide for students exploring the complex and vibrant history of US cinema and showing how this film culture has grown, changed and developed.

Covering key periods from across American cinema history, John Alberti explores the social, technological and political forces that have shaped cinematic output and the varied impacts cinema of on US society.

Each chapter has a series of illuminating key features, including:

• Now Playing, focusing on films as cinematic events, from "The Birth of a Nation" to "Gone with the Wind" to "Titanic, "to place the reader in the social context of those viewing the films for the first time
• In Development, exploring changing genres, from the melodrama to the contemporary super hero movies,
• The Names Above and Below the Title, portraying the impact and legacy of central figures, including Florence Lawrence, Orson Welles and Wes Anderson
• Case studies, analyzing key elements of films in more depth
• Glossary terms featured throughout the text, to aid non-specialist students and expand the readers understanding of changing screen cultures.

"

Screen Ages" illustrates how the history of US cinema has always been and continues to be one of multiple screens, audiences, venues, and markets. It is an essential text for all those wanting to understand of power of American cinema throughout history and the challenges for its future.

The book is also supported by a companion website, featuring additional case studies, an interactive blog, a quiz bank for each chapter and an online chapter, Screen Ages Today that will be updated to discuss the latest developments in American cinema."

Spis treści

Introduction: Hollywood in the Screen Ages  1. Beginnings: Multiple Cinemas, Multiple Audiences, 1895-1907  2. Becoming "The Movies": The Nickelodeon Age, 1908-1915  3. Movie Palaces, Corner Theaters, and Tent Shows: The Silent Era and the First Hollywood, 1915-1928  4. The Studios Era: Dominance and Diversity in the Golden Age of Hollywood, 1929-1948  5. Theatres, Drive-Ins, and Living Rooms: Changing Screens, Changing Movies, 1949-1966  6. Movies Big and Small: Art Movies, Blockbusters, and the New Hollywood, 1967-1980  7. Shopping Malls, Video Stores, and Cable TV: Movies in the Franchise Era, 1981-1997  8. The Digital Era: Back to the Future, 1994-Present

O autorze

John Alberti is Director of Graduate Studies and Director of Cinema Studies in the Department of English at Northern Kentucky University, USA. His previous books included The Working Life: Readings on Work, Labor, and Career, Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibilities of Oppositional Culture, and The Canon in the Classroom: Pedagogical Implications of Canon Revision in American Literature.