Carol O'Sullivan and Jean-François Cornu (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780197266434
- eISBN:
- 9780191884191
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266434.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This rich collection of essays by film historians, translation scholars, archivists, and curators presents film translation history as an exciting and timely area of research. It builds on the last ...
More
This rich collection of essays by film historians, translation scholars, archivists, and curators presents film translation history as an exciting and timely area of research. It builds on the last 20 years of research into the history of dubbing and subtitling, but goes further, by showing how subtitling, dubbing, and other forms of audiovisual translation developed over the first 50 years of the 20th century.
This is the first book-length study, in any language, of the international history of audiovisual translation to include silent cinema. Its scope covers national contexts both within Europe and beyond. It shows how audiovisual translation practices were closely tied to their commercial, technological, and industrial contexts. The Translation of Films, 1900–1950 draws extensively on archival sources and expertise, and revisits and challenges some of the established narratives around film languages and the coming of sound. For instance, the volume shows how silent films, far from being straightforward to translate, went through a complex process of editing for international distribution. It also closely tracks the ferment of experiments in film translation during the transition to sound from 1927 to 1934 and later, as markets adjusted to the demands of synchronised film.
The Translation of Films, 1900–1950 argues for a broader understanding of film translation: far from being limited to language transfer, it encompasses editing, localisation, censorship, paratextual framing, and other factors. It advocates for film translation to be considered as a crucial contribution not only to the worldwide circulation of films, but also to the art of cinema.Less
This rich collection of essays by film historians, translation scholars, archivists, and curators presents film translation history as an exciting and timely area of research. It builds on the last 20 years of research into the history of dubbing and subtitling, but goes further, by showing how subtitling, dubbing, and other forms of audiovisual translation developed over the first 50 years of the 20th century.
This is the first book-length study, in any language, of the international history of audiovisual translation to include silent cinema. Its scope covers national contexts both within Europe and beyond. It shows how audiovisual translation practices were closely tied to their commercial, technological, and industrial contexts. The Translation of Films, 1900–1950 draws extensively on archival sources and expertise, and revisits and challenges some of the established narratives around film languages and the coming of sound. For instance, the volume shows how silent films, far from being straightforward to translate, went through a complex process of editing for international distribution. It also closely tracks the ferment of experiments in film translation during the transition to sound from 1927 to 1934 and later, as markets adjusted to the demands of synchronised film.
The Translation of Films, 1900–1950 argues for a broader understanding of film translation: far from being limited to language transfer, it encompasses editing, localisation, censorship, paratextual framing, and other factors. It advocates for film translation to be considered as a crucial contribution not only to the worldwide circulation of films, but also to the art of cinema.
Jean-François Cornu
Carol O’ (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780197266434
- eISBN:
- 9780191884191
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266434.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introductory chapter highlights how film translation history is a new discipline, a coming together of film history and translation history. It provides a definition of film translation as ...
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This introductory chapter highlights how film translation history is a new discipline, a coming together of film history and translation history. It provides a definition of film translation as encompassing all the conventional modes of film translation of the silent and talking periods. Because of the polysemiotic nature of the film medium, film translation includes related interventions of all kinds, such as editing changes and image and sound manipulation. The chapter also emphasises how this volume is driven by a multidisciplinary and international approach to film translation history, and contributes to scholarship seeking to transnationalise film history. It details the aims and structure of the book, and shows how crucial archival and access issues are to understanding the evolution of film translation, and to raising awareness about the nature of the films we watch and listen to.Less
This introductory chapter highlights how film translation history is a new discipline, a coming together of film history and translation history. It provides a definition of film translation as encompassing all the conventional modes of film translation of the silent and talking periods. Because of the polysemiotic nature of the film medium, film translation includes related interventions of all kinds, such as editing changes and image and sound manipulation. The chapter also emphasises how this volume is driven by a multidisciplinary and international approach to film translation history, and contributes to scholarship seeking to transnationalise film history. It details the aims and structure of the book, and shows how crucial archival and access issues are to understanding the evolution of film translation, and to raising awareness about the nature of the films we watch and listen to.
Carol O’ (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780197266434
- eISBN:
- 9780191884191
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266434.003.0015
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter offers the first account of the beginning of subtitling in the United Kingdom and in the United States. The release of foreign-language films with superimposed English titles began in ...
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This chapter offers the first account of the beginning of subtitling in the United Kingdom and in the United States. The release of foreign-language films with superimposed English titles began in both countries in the course of 1931, and became generalised in 1932. The chapter discusses early experiments in titling, including the use of interpolated titles after the fashion of silent films. It also raises a number of methodological problems, including the difficulty of interpretation of press data. This difficulty means that as yet we have only a provisional picture of early subtitling practices in the UK and USA, and for several of these early subtitled versions the nature and extent of the titling is not known. The chapter also discusses the question of survival of the material artefacts of these subtitled versions.Less
This chapter offers the first account of the beginning of subtitling in the United Kingdom and in the United States. The release of foreign-language films with superimposed English titles began in both countries in the course of 1931, and became generalised in 1932. The chapter discusses early experiments in titling, including the use of interpolated titles after the fashion of silent films. It also raises a number of methodological problems, including the difficulty of interpretation of press data. This difficulty means that as yet we have only a provisional picture of early subtitling practices in the UK and USA, and for several of these early subtitled versions the nature and extent of the titling is not known. The chapter also discusses the question of survival of the material artefacts of these subtitled versions.
Claire Dupré La Tour
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780197266434
- eISBN:
- 9780191884191
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266434.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The shift from titles on lantern slides to the practice of titling on the film itself dates to the turn of the 20th century. Early examples of preserved filmed titles are rare, but occasional ...
More
The shift from titles on lantern slides to the practice of titling on the film itself dates to the turn of the 20th century. Early examples of preserved filmed titles are rare, but occasional advertisements can be found in the UK in catalogues of James Williamson (1899) and Robert William Paul (1901), and in France in a catalogue of the Parnaland film company (1901). Although evidence shows that Pathé was using this technique in 1901, catalogues from its British branch reveal that it advertised it from May 1903. The advertisements highlighted positive outcomes for producers and exhibitors, and promoted titles in a variety of languages. This early titling strategy allowed Pathé to get ahead of its competitors in terms of industrialisation, control over its product, and domestic and foreign market share. This chapter focuses on early filmed titling and intertitling practices, Pathé’s innovative offer in 1903, and its evolution until 1908.Less
The shift from titles on lantern slides to the practice of titling on the film itself dates to the turn of the 20th century. Early examples of preserved filmed titles are rare, but occasional advertisements can be found in the UK in catalogues of James Williamson (1899) and Robert William Paul (1901), and in France in a catalogue of the Parnaland film company (1901). Although evidence shows that Pathé was using this technique in 1901, catalogues from its British branch reveal that it advertised it from May 1903. The advertisements highlighted positive outcomes for producers and exhibitors, and promoted titles in a variety of languages. This early titling strategy allowed Pathé to get ahead of its competitors in terms of industrialisation, control over its product, and domestic and foreign market share. This chapter focuses on early filmed titling and intertitling practices, Pathé’s innovative offer in 1903, and its evolution until 1908.
Richard Barrios
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195377347
- eISBN:
- 9780199864577
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377347.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This book chronicles the birth and early years of an art form — the musical film. When sound came to film in the 1920s, musicals led the way as the testing ground upon which sound film proved itself ...
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This book chronicles the birth and early years of an art form — the musical film. When sound came to film in the 1920s, musicals led the way as the testing ground upon which sound film proved itself — dauntlessly, intrepidly, sometimes artistically, often ineptly, through works and artists both familiar and forgotten: Al Jolson, the Oscar-winning Broadway Melody, director Ernst Lubitsch, the aberrant Golden Dawn, many more. After immense popularity, the musical market collapsed almost overnight as oversaturated audiences began to feel the effects of the Depression. There was nearly three years of down time, and then the genre returned, phoenix-like, with the triumphant 42nd Street. After seeming to contradict the national mood, musicals came to symbolize the country's recovery from crisis; in 1934, they assumed their final form with the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code. They would continue successfully for decades, but that early pioneer spirit and willingness to experiment and take chances were now mainly gone. Posterity has mainly misunderstood these films and underestimated their importance, yet their echoes and experiments resonate into the twenty-first century, and they form an intensely vital national heritage. Through meticulous research and analysis based in reception theory, this book reclaims the films and their creators, as well as the culture that embraced, rejected, then reconnected with them.Less
This book chronicles the birth and early years of an art form — the musical film. When sound came to film in the 1920s, musicals led the way as the testing ground upon which sound film proved itself — dauntlessly, intrepidly, sometimes artistically, often ineptly, through works and artists both familiar and forgotten: Al Jolson, the Oscar-winning Broadway Melody, director Ernst Lubitsch, the aberrant Golden Dawn, many more. After immense popularity, the musical market collapsed almost overnight as oversaturated audiences began to feel the effects of the Depression. There was nearly three years of down time, and then the genre returned, phoenix-like, with the triumphant 42nd Street. After seeming to contradict the national mood, musicals came to symbolize the country's recovery from crisis; in 1934, they assumed their final form with the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code. They would continue successfully for decades, but that early pioneer spirit and willingness to experiment and take chances were now mainly gone. Posterity has mainly misunderstood these films and underestimated their importance, yet their echoes and experiments resonate into the twenty-first century, and they form an intensely vital national heritage. Through meticulous research and analysis based in reception theory, this book reclaims the films and their creators, as well as the culture that embraced, rejected, then reconnected with them.
Janna Jones
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813041926
- eISBN:
- 9780813043906
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813041926.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The Past Is a Moving Picture is a cultural analysis of how and why people have rescued, protected, and restored old film and how their efforts have created a massive memory bank of life in the ...
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The Past Is a Moving Picture is a cultural analysis of how and why people have rescued, protected, and restored old film and how their efforts have created a massive memory bank of life in the twentieth century. Focusing on the film archives at the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Archives and UCLA Film and Television Archives, The Past Is a Moving Picture interprets the dominant film preservation practices and archiving principles of the nation's renowned film archives and analyzes how old movies and their advocates have shaped the way we see and understand film history and our cultural heritage. It chronicles the film archive while reflecting on cultural memory and complexities of preserving our nation's past by saving cinema.Less
The Past Is a Moving Picture is a cultural analysis of how and why people have rescued, protected, and restored old film and how their efforts have created a massive memory bank of life in the twentieth century. Focusing on the film archives at the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Archives and UCLA Film and Television Archives, The Past Is a Moving Picture interprets the dominant film preservation practices and archiving principles of the nation's renowned film archives and analyzes how old movies and their advocates have shaped the way we see and understand film history and our cultural heritage. It chronicles the film archive while reflecting on cultural memory and complexities of preserving our nation's past by saving cinema.
Charles O’brien
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780197266434
- eISBN:
- 9780191884191
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266434.003.0010
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter uses the case of dubbing practices in the early 1930s to consider the possibility that the impact of screen translation techniques on film aesthetics is more significant than has been ...
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This chapter uses the case of dubbing practices in the early 1930s to consider the possibility that the impact of screen translation techniques on film aesthetics is more significant than has been recognised. The focus is on Hollywood’s unexpected adoption in 1931 of voice dubbing as its principal means of preparing films for the main foreign markets. Hollywood’s reliance on dubbing is contrasted with practices in the German film industry, its main rival for the world film market, where films for export were prepared in foreign-language versions rather than dubbed. Dubbing involved more than voice replacement to affect motion picture style in various ways. Trade press documentation is used to suggest that the dubbed American films of 1931 typically featured less speech; fewer close-ups of speaking actors; more reaction shots in dialogue scenes; more cuts overall; framings and props that concealed rather than displayed the actors’ moving lips; and other stylistic quirks.Less
This chapter uses the case of dubbing practices in the early 1930s to consider the possibility that the impact of screen translation techniques on film aesthetics is more significant than has been recognised. The focus is on Hollywood’s unexpected adoption in 1931 of voice dubbing as its principal means of preparing films for the main foreign markets. Hollywood’s reliance on dubbing is contrasted with practices in the German film industry, its main rival for the world film market, where films for export were prepared in foreign-language versions rather than dubbed. Dubbing involved more than voice replacement to affect motion picture style in various ways. Trade press documentation is used to suggest that the dubbed American films of 1931 typically featured less speech; fewer close-ups of speaking actors; more reaction shots in dialogue scenes; more cuts overall; framings and props that concealed rather than displayed the actors’ moving lips; and other stylistic quirks.
Martin Barnier
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780197266434
- eISBN:
- 9780191884191
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266434.003.0012
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The international film trade changed dramatically with the generalisation of sound films. It became more difficult for Hollywood to export English-speaking films than during the silent era. One ...
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The international film trade changed dramatically with the generalisation of sound films. It became more difficult for Hollywood to export English-speaking films than during the silent era. One solution was multiple-language films, which helped French stars to become even more popular in France. The Hollywood studios quickly opted for dubbing as the best solution. The first two Paramount films dubbed into French were Derelict (as Désemparé) and Morocco (as Cœurs brûlés) in 1931. How were these dubbed versions received by critics and the trade press in France? Popular film magazines did not object to dubbed versions so much, while cinephile magazines considered they were rushed jobs. This chapter studies the evolution of the reception of dubbed films in France in 1931–3, using evidence from the trade and popular press. It traces the beginning of the opposition between original-language versions for upmarket movie theatres, and dubbed versions aimed at popular neighbourhoods.Less
The international film trade changed dramatically with the generalisation of sound films. It became more difficult for Hollywood to export English-speaking films than during the silent era. One solution was multiple-language films, which helped French stars to become even more popular in France. The Hollywood studios quickly opted for dubbing as the best solution. The first two Paramount films dubbed into French were Derelict (as Désemparé) and Morocco (as Cœurs brûlés) in 1931. How were these dubbed versions received by critics and the trade press in France? Popular film magazines did not object to dubbed versions so much, while cinephile magazines considered they were rushed jobs. This chapter studies the evolution of the reception of dubbed films in France in 1931–3, using evidence from the trade and popular press. It traces the beginning of the opposition between original-language versions for upmarket movie theatres, and dubbed versions aimed at popular neighbourhoods.
Paul Grainge, Mark Jancovich, and Sharon Monteith (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748619061
- eISBN:
- 9780748670888
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748619061.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A wide-ranging introduction to film history, this book covers the history of film from 1895 to the present day. The book is arranged chronologically, and each chapter contains an introduction by the ...
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A wide-ranging introduction to film history, this book covers the history of film from 1895 to the present day. The book is arranged chronologically, and each chapter contains an introduction by the editors on the key developments within the period, followed by a classic piece of historical research about that period. Various types of film history are undertaken in the chapters, so that readers can become familiar with different types of film historical research. For example, topics include the history of audiences; exhibition; marketing; censorship; aesthetic history; political history; and historical reception studies. The book is therefore designed to provide a narrative history spine while simultaneously introducing readers to different approaches to the study and research of film history. Concentrating on the plurality of the ‘historical turn’ in film studies, it demonstrates that film history is, and should be, about more than simply key films, directors, and movements.Less
A wide-ranging introduction to film history, this book covers the history of film from 1895 to the present day. The book is arranged chronologically, and each chapter contains an introduction by the editors on the key developments within the period, followed by a classic piece of historical research about that period. Various types of film history are undertaken in the chapters, so that readers can become familiar with different types of film historical research. For example, topics include the history of audiences; exhibition; marketing; censorship; aesthetic history; political history; and historical reception studies. The book is therefore designed to provide a narrative history spine while simultaneously introducing readers to different approaches to the study and research of film history. Concentrating on the plurality of the ‘historical turn’ in film studies, it demonstrates that film history is, and should be, about more than simply key films, directors, and movements.
Charles Barr
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780197266434
- eISBN:
- 9780191884191
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266434.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Silent films were commonly adapted for foreign markets not simply by translation of intertitles but, when desired, by more radical change, both to the titles and to the whole structure and thrust of ...
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Silent films were commonly adapted for foreign markets not simply by translation of intertitles but, when desired, by more radical change, both to the titles and to the whole structure and thrust of the narrative. The young Soviet Union systematically transformed films from the West in order to make them ideologically acceptable for its own public, as well as to train filmmakers in the craft of editing. The discovery in Moscow of the re-edited version of the 1922 Anglo-American production Three Live Ghosts—on which Alfred Hitchcock worked as title designer—enables an unprecedentedly full case study of this transformation process. Characters and their Great War context are ruthlessly reworked, in the service of a fresh anti-capitalist story. Finally, the same process is traced in reverse, in the sound period, through Hollywood’s own re-editing, for Cold War audiences, of its pro-Soviet wartime feature North Star into an anti-Soviet narrative.Less
Silent films were commonly adapted for foreign markets not simply by translation of intertitles but, when desired, by more radical change, both to the titles and to the whole structure and thrust of the narrative. The young Soviet Union systematically transformed films from the West in order to make them ideologically acceptable for its own public, as well as to train filmmakers in the craft of editing. The discovery in Moscow of the re-edited version of the 1922 Anglo-American production Three Live Ghosts—on which Alfred Hitchcock worked as title designer—enables an unprecedentedly full case study of this transformation process. Characters and their Great War context are ruthlessly reworked, in the service of a fresh anti-capitalist story. Finally, the same process is traced in reverse, in the sound period, through Hollywood’s own re-editing, for Cold War audiences, of its pro-Soviet wartime feature North Star into an anti-Soviet narrative.
Thomas C. Christensen
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780197266434
- eISBN:
- 9780191884191
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266434.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
When restoring a film, the aim is naturally always to provide the definitive version. However, many factors make this an impossible mission. This chapter draws on actual film archival practice and ...
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When restoring a film, the aim is naturally always to provide the definitive version. However, many factors make this an impossible mission. This chapter draws on actual film archival practice and theory, exposing a minefield of obstacles facing any academic study trying to examine film history based on restored works. The focus is on silent cinema restoration, intertitles, and translation issues. Using Mark-Paul Meyer and Paul Read’s categories—from a one-to-one duplication to the creation of an altogether new work—the aim is to give an insight into the complexity of silent film restoration and the practical, and sometimes very unacademic, nature of the actual restoration work. The fact that most film restorations typically concentrate on image quality rather than titles, which are often merely supposed to support the visual action, adds to the complexity of transparency about the provenance of the filmic titles as an object of study.Less
When restoring a film, the aim is naturally always to provide the definitive version. However, many factors make this an impossible mission. This chapter draws on actual film archival practice and theory, exposing a minefield of obstacles facing any academic study trying to examine film history based on restored works. The focus is on silent cinema restoration, intertitles, and translation issues. Using Mark-Paul Meyer and Paul Read’s categories—from a one-to-one duplication to the creation of an altogether new work—the aim is to give an insight into the complexity of silent film restoration and the practical, and sometimes very unacademic, nature of the actual restoration work. The fact that most film restorations typically concentrate on image quality rather than titles, which are often merely supposed to support the visual action, adds to the complexity of transparency about the provenance of the filmic titles as an object of study.
Paul Grainge, Mark Jancovich, and Sharon Monteith
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748619061
- eISBN:
- 9780748670888
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748619061.003.0014
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses films in the 1950s — a decade of contradictions in society as well as cinema, a decade in which ideals such as a middle-class lifestyle, the model home, and marriage and ...
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This chapter discusses films in the 1950s — a decade of contradictions in society as well as cinema, a decade in which ideals such as a middle-class lifestyle, the model home, and marriage and parenthood were complicated and undermined by anxieties over gender roles and cross-generational tensions. The nuclear family ideal was of particular importance in the postwar period as a site of hope and regeneration. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Popular Films and Colonial Audiences: The Movies in Northern Rhodesia’ by Charles Ambler, which focuses on the ‘Copperbelt’ mining district of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia following independence in 1964), in order to assess the circumstances in which American cinema, and by extension Western culture as constructed by the Hollywood dream factory, was consumed by a specific African audience.Less
This chapter discusses films in the 1950s — a decade of contradictions in society as well as cinema, a decade in which ideals such as a middle-class lifestyle, the model home, and marriage and parenthood were complicated and undermined by anxieties over gender roles and cross-generational tensions. The nuclear family ideal was of particular importance in the postwar period as a site of hope and regeneration. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Popular Films and Colonial Audiences: The Movies in Northern Rhodesia’ by Charles Ambler, which focuses on the ‘Copperbelt’ mining district of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia following independence in 1964), in order to assess the circumstances in which American cinema, and by extension Western culture as constructed by the Hollywood dream factory, was consumed by a specific African audience.
Peter Alilunas
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520291706
- eISBN:
- 9780520965362
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520291706.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Chapter one examines the early history of adult video from a variety of technological, cultural, and industrial perspectives beginning with the Panoram, a device invented in the 1940s and completely ...
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Chapter one examines the early history of adult video from a variety of technological, cultural, and industrial perspectives beginning with the Panoram, a device invented in the 1940s and completely unintended for pornography. Following is an analysis of the adult motel landscape of Southern California, an early site of adult video distribution. The chapter concludes with a history of the early pioneers of adult video, including George Atkinson, who created the first video rental store in the United States.Less
Chapter one examines the early history of adult video from a variety of technological, cultural, and industrial perspectives beginning with the Panoram, a device invented in the 1940s and completely unintended for pornography. Following is an analysis of the adult motel landscape of Southern California, an early site of adult video distribution. The chapter concludes with a history of the early pioneers of adult video, including George Atkinson, who created the first video rental store in the United States.
Paul Grainge, Mark Jancovich, and Sharon Monteith
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748619061
- eISBN:
- 9780748670888
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748619061.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses the international scope and status of early cinema, and the particular significance of European production companies. While Europe dominated world film markets in the first ...
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This chapter discusses the international scope and status of early cinema, and the particular significance of European production companies. While Europe dominated world film markets in the first decade of the twentieth century, the situation began to change as the business organisation of the American film industry was streamlined, and the Hollywood studio system developed. In the emerging history of Hollywood, the established powers of the Motion Picture Patents Company positioned themselves against a growing lobby of independent producers, distributors, and exhibitors in a fight for market control. It was from this struggle that the industrial and aesthetic dominance of the American studio system would emerge and come to assert itself in national and international terms. The chapter also includes the study, ‘The Perils of Pathé, or the Americanization of Early American Cinema’ by Richard Abel, which examines the means by which cinema became a contested site of Americanization.Less
This chapter discusses the international scope and status of early cinema, and the particular significance of European production companies. While Europe dominated world film markets in the first decade of the twentieth century, the situation began to change as the business organisation of the American film industry was streamlined, and the Hollywood studio system developed. In the emerging history of Hollywood, the established powers of the Motion Picture Patents Company positioned themselves against a growing lobby of independent producers, distributors, and exhibitors in a fight for market control. It was from this struggle that the industrial and aesthetic dominance of the American studio system would emerge and come to assert itself in national and international terms. The chapter also includes the study, ‘The Perils of Pathé, or the Americanization of Early American Cinema’ by Richard Abel, which examines the means by which cinema became a contested site of Americanization.
J.E. Smyth
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813124063
- eISBN:
- 9780813134765
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813124063.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book departs from the traditional understanding of the relationship between film and history. By looking at production records, scripts, and contemporary reviews, the book argues that certain ...
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This book departs from the traditional understanding of the relationship between film and history. By looking at production records, scripts, and contemporary reviews, the book argues that certain classical Hollywood filmmakers were actively engaged in a self-conscious and often critical filmic writing of national history. This volume is a reassessment of American historiography and cinematic historians from the advent of sound to the beginning of wartime film production in 1942. Focusing on key films such as Cimarron (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), Scarface (1932), Ramona (1936), A Star Is Born (1937), Jezebel (1938), Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), Stagecoach (1939), and Citizen Kane (1941), this book explores historical cinema's connections to popular and academic historiography, historical fiction, and journalism, providing a rich context for the industry's commitment to American history. Rather than emphasizing the divide between American historical cinema and historical writing, the book explores the continuities between Hollywood films and history written during the first four decades of the twentieth century, from Carl Becker's famous “Everyman His Own Historian” to Howard Hughes's Scarface to Margaret Mitchell and David O. Selznick's Gone with the Wind. Hollywood's popular and often controversial cycle of historical films from 1931 to 1942 confronted issues as diverse as frontier racism and women's experiences in the nineteenth-century South, the decline of American society following the First World War, the rise of Al Capone, and the tragic history of Hollywood's silent era. Looking at rarely discussed archival material, Smyth focuses on classical Hollywood filmmakers' adaptation and scripting of traditional historical discourse and their critical revision of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American history.Less
This book departs from the traditional understanding of the relationship between film and history. By looking at production records, scripts, and contemporary reviews, the book argues that certain classical Hollywood filmmakers were actively engaged in a self-conscious and often critical filmic writing of national history. This volume is a reassessment of American historiography and cinematic historians from the advent of sound to the beginning of wartime film production in 1942. Focusing on key films such as Cimarron (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), Scarface (1932), Ramona (1936), A Star Is Born (1937), Jezebel (1938), Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), Stagecoach (1939), and Citizen Kane (1941), this book explores historical cinema's connections to popular and academic historiography, historical fiction, and journalism, providing a rich context for the industry's commitment to American history. Rather than emphasizing the divide between American historical cinema and historical writing, the book explores the continuities between Hollywood films and history written during the first four decades of the twentieth century, from Carl Becker's famous “Everyman His Own Historian” to Howard Hughes's Scarface to Margaret Mitchell and David O. Selznick's Gone with the Wind. Hollywood's popular and often controversial cycle of historical films from 1931 to 1942 confronted issues as diverse as frontier racism and women's experiences in the nineteenth-century South, the decline of American society following the First World War, the rise of Al Capone, and the tragic history of Hollywood's silent era. Looking at rarely discussed archival material, Smyth focuses on classical Hollywood filmmakers' adaptation and scripting of traditional historical discourse and their critical revision of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American history.
Janna Jones
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813041926
- eISBN:
- 9780813043906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813041926.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter is an investigation of what film restorationists do and how they think and talk about their work. Current restoration discourse and practices literally assemble and help to shape cinema ...
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This chapter is an investigation of what film restorationists do and how they think and talk about their work. Current restoration discourse and practices literally assemble and help to shape cinema history and reveal how the moving image archive influences the ways that a film history is understood. Focusing on several film restoration case studies and in-depth interviews with some of the country's foremost film restorationists, and the analysis of restoration commentary on the DVD version of Lost Horizon, my aim is not to critique the current methods of film restoration, but to interpret the way restorationists and the archival community both conceptualize film restoration and practice the piecing together of history. This knowledge helps us to better understand how restorationists regard the cinematic object as historical artifact and how the contemporary culture of the archive engages its relationship with the past. The work of restorationists and their particular kind of film-remaking show us the trench work of (re) constructing cinematic history. The restored film should be understood as new type of film born from the cinematic and archival sensibilities at the turn of the twenty-first century.Less
This chapter is an investigation of what film restorationists do and how they think and talk about their work. Current restoration discourse and practices literally assemble and help to shape cinema history and reveal how the moving image archive influences the ways that a film history is understood. Focusing on several film restoration case studies and in-depth interviews with some of the country's foremost film restorationists, and the analysis of restoration commentary on the DVD version of Lost Horizon, my aim is not to critique the current methods of film restoration, but to interpret the way restorationists and the archival community both conceptualize film restoration and practice the piecing together of history. This knowledge helps us to better understand how restorationists regard the cinematic object as historical artifact and how the contemporary culture of the archive engages its relationship with the past. The work of restorationists and their particular kind of film-remaking show us the trench work of (re) constructing cinematic history. The restored film should be understood as new type of film born from the cinematic and archival sensibilities at the turn of the twenty-first century.
Paul Grainge, Mark Jancovich, and Sharon Monteith
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748619061
- eISBN:
- 9780748670888
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748619061.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter shows that classical norms were not fixed rules or structures, but set particular boundaries within which innovation could take place. In essence, classical film style rejected formal ...
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This chapter shows that classical norms were not fixed rules or structures, but set particular boundaries within which innovation could take place. In essence, classical film style rejected formal techniques that were purposely disruptive or jarring to the audience. While it is sometimes implied that classical norms emerged simultaneously with the studio system, it is important to note that the aesthetic principles of classical Hollywood cinema preceded the studio system. The development of film style in this sense (classical norms) did not emerge in the very same historical instant as the mode of production that gave it institutional shape (the studio system). Instead, the relation between the two would develop a gradual symbiosis, such that classical norms would become synonymous with the studio system as it emerged more fully after the First World War. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Mass-produced Photoplays: Economic and Signifying Practices in the First Years of Hollywood’ by Janet Staiger, which examines how production practices in the early 1910s influenced the way that films were developed and made.Less
This chapter shows that classical norms were not fixed rules or structures, but set particular boundaries within which innovation could take place. In essence, classical film style rejected formal techniques that were purposely disruptive or jarring to the audience. While it is sometimes implied that classical norms emerged simultaneously with the studio system, it is important to note that the aesthetic principles of classical Hollywood cinema preceded the studio system. The development of film style in this sense (classical norms) did not emerge in the very same historical instant as the mode of production that gave it institutional shape (the studio system). Instead, the relation between the two would develop a gradual symbiosis, such that classical norms would become synonymous with the studio system as it emerged more fully after the First World War. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Mass-produced Photoplays: Economic and Signifying Practices in the First Years of Hollywood’ by Janet Staiger, which examines how production practices in the early 1910s influenced the way that films were developed and made.
James Wicks
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9789888208500
- eISBN:
- 9789888313204
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888208500.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The first chapter of this book, “Framing Taiwan Cinema: Perspectives on History in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Three Times”, which is intended to be read alongside a screening of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s 2005 film ...
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The first chapter of this book, “Framing Taiwan Cinema: Perspectives on History in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Three Times”, which is intended to be read alongside a screening of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s 2005 film Three Times, provides an accessible introduction to Taiwan cinema by synthesizing in one location key moments in Taiwan’s film history. While the locus of this chapter is Taiwan’s Mandarin state films, the chapter includes intersections with other national film traditions and describes how Mandarin film gradually replaced the vibrant Taiwanese-dialect film (taiyu pian) tradition in the 1970s. In order to do so, it traces the era’s prominent figures, movements, and dates. This includes a summary of Taiwan film in the early 1960s, the influence of Hong Kong film, especially in 1963, with director Li Hanxiang’s The Love Eterne (Liang Shanbo yu Zhu Yingtai), a brief account of Taiwan’s so-called “golden age” film in the early 1970s, patriotic war films of the mid-1970s, and adaptations of nativist literature by the state in late 1970s films. Overall, this chapter provides an overview of Taiwan cinema and places in position a scaffolding of historical details and information essential for the analyses presented in the following chapters.Less
The first chapter of this book, “Framing Taiwan Cinema: Perspectives on History in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Three Times”, which is intended to be read alongside a screening of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s 2005 film Three Times, provides an accessible introduction to Taiwan cinema by synthesizing in one location key moments in Taiwan’s film history. While the locus of this chapter is Taiwan’s Mandarin state films, the chapter includes intersections with other national film traditions and describes how Mandarin film gradually replaced the vibrant Taiwanese-dialect film (taiyu pian) tradition in the 1970s. In order to do so, it traces the era’s prominent figures, movements, and dates. This includes a summary of Taiwan film in the early 1960s, the influence of Hong Kong film, especially in 1963, with director Li Hanxiang’s The Love Eterne (Liang Shanbo yu Zhu Yingtai), a brief account of Taiwan’s so-called “golden age” film in the early 1970s, patriotic war films of the mid-1970s, and adaptations of nativist literature by the state in late 1970s films. Overall, this chapter provides an overview of Taiwan cinema and places in position a scaffolding of historical details and information essential for the analyses presented in the following chapters.
Marco Deseriis
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694860
- eISBN:
- 9781452952413
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694860.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Politics, Social Movements and Social Change
This chapter focuses on Alan Smithee, a pseudonym introduced by the Directors Guild of America to allow film directors to work outside of their reputation. The chapter shows how the accumulation of ...
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This chapter focuses on Alan Smithee, a pseudonym introduced by the Directors Guild of America to allow film directors to work outside of their reputation. The chapter shows how the accumulation of negative reputation in the name of Smithee ultimately undermined the DGA’s ability to preserve its original function within the regulated field of Hollywood labor relations.Less
This chapter focuses on Alan Smithee, a pseudonym introduced by the Directors Guild of America to allow film directors to work outside of their reputation. The chapter shows how the accumulation of negative reputation in the name of Smithee ultimately undermined the DGA’s ability to preserve its original function within the regulated field of Hollywood labor relations.
Paul Grainge, Mark Jancovich, and Sharon Monteith
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748619061
- eISBN:
- 9780748670888
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748619061.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses the competitors of the American film industry. The German film industry competed most successfully with America in that its domestic productions outweighed foreign imports in ...
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This chapter discusses the competitors of the American film industry. The German film industry competed most successfully with America in that its domestic productions outweighed foreign imports in the 1920s, and Britain put up a very good fight at the box office, with 1927 its annus mirabilis. However, protectionist measures would characterise a decade in which national cinemas sought to hold their own against Hollywood's incursions into other national cinemas. The American challenge to European and other cinemas was also underwritten by the federal support that the American film industry received from the US Government's Commerce Department, designed to support a developing industry. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Social Mobility and the Fantastic: German Silent Cinema’ by Thomas Elsaesser, a revisionist study that pays tribute to two classic film studies of the era — Siegfried Kracauer's sociological From Caligari to Hitler (1947) and Lotte Eisner's aesthetic study The Haunted Screen (1969). Elsaesser critiques what had become their ‘consensus’ view of the cinema of the period.Less
This chapter discusses the competitors of the American film industry. The German film industry competed most successfully with America in that its domestic productions outweighed foreign imports in the 1920s, and Britain put up a very good fight at the box office, with 1927 its annus mirabilis. However, protectionist measures would characterise a decade in which national cinemas sought to hold their own against Hollywood's incursions into other national cinemas. The American challenge to European and other cinemas was also underwritten by the federal support that the American film industry received from the US Government's Commerce Department, designed to support a developing industry. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Social Mobility and the Fantastic: German Silent Cinema’ by Thomas Elsaesser, a revisionist study that pays tribute to two classic film studies of the era — Siegfried Kracauer's sociological From Caligari to Hitler (1947) and Lotte Eisner's aesthetic study The Haunted Screen (1969). Elsaesser critiques what had become their ‘consensus’ view of the cinema of the period.
