American Film History - Origins to 1960

This authoritative collection of introductory and specialized readings takes its readers through the rich and creative history of this period in American cinema. Spanning a fascinating range of subjects from the early 1900s Nickelodeon to the decline of the studio system in the 1960s, it combines broader historical context with careful readings of individual films.§§Charts the rise of film in early twentieth-century America from its origins to 1960, exploring mainstream trends and developments alongside topics often relegated to the margins of standard film histories§Covers diverse issues ranging from silent film and iconic figures such as Charlie Chaplin, the coming of sound, to the rise of film genres, studio moguls, and, later, the Cold War blacklist§Designed with both students and scholars in mind: each section opens with an historical overview, and provides close, careful readings of individual films clustered around specific topics§Accessibly structured by historical period, offering valuable cultural, social, and political context§Contains careful, close analysis of key films from the era including early D.W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, and Buster Keaton films, films of Erich von Stroheim and Cecil B. DeMille, Don Juan and The Jazz Singer, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, films of the early avant-garde, Scarface, Red Dust, Glorifying the American Girl, Meet Me in St. Louis, Citizen Kane, Bambi, Frank Capra's Why We Fight series, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Rebel Without a Cause, Force of Evil, selected American underground films, among many others.§Additional online resources such as sample syllabi, which include suggested readings and filmographies for specialized topics, will be available on publication at www.wiley.com/go/lucia§May be used alongside The History of American Film: Selected Readings, 1960 to the Present, to provide an authoritative study of American cinema through the new millennium