Screen ages: A survey of American cinema/ John Alberti

Introduction; Hollywood in the screen ages
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Movies in the twenty-first century
The screen ages: The myth of Hollywood's "Golden Age"
The same movie on different screens: The event-centered approach to movie history
Case study 0.1: Schindler's List and Castlemont High School
The structure of Screen Ages
1. Beginnings: Multiple cinemas, multiple audiences. 1895-1907
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Vitascope debuts at Koster and Bial's Music Hall, New York City, April 23, 1896
A day at a Mutoscope peep show, St Louis, Missouri, 1900
The Great Train Robbery plays at the Nickelodeon theater, Pittsburgh, 1905
Screen ages
The invention of "the movies" *
Beginnings: Pre-cinema
Photography and nineteenth-century screen shows
Eadweard Muybridge and the first movies
The beginnings of mass media in nineteenth-century Arfierica
The movies begin in America
Competition and diversity: Taking control of events
Controlling the movies: Edison and the Motion Picture Patents Company
In development
The invention of "the movies" and the first narrative genres
Actualities and the documentary tradition
Case study 1.1: From Kinetoscopes to YouTube
From actuality to melodrama: The Life of an American Fireman
Turn-of-the-century genres of gender: Muscle men and dancing girls
Case study 1.2: An early movie scandal: "The Kiss"
The names above and below the title
Thomas Edison and the cult{ure) of invention
Alice Guy-Blache and women in film
Edwin S. Porter and the artisanal screen age
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2. Becoming "the movies": The nickelodeon age, 1908-1915
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Joseph Medill Patterson reports on "The Nickelodeons," Saturday Evening Post,
November 23, 1907
. Los Angeles nickelodeon showing of Kid Auto Races at Venice, 1914
Cahiria premieres at the Knickerbocker Theatre, New York City, June 1, 1914
Screen ages
A new medium for a new America
Growing demand and the rise of the independents
The movies go west
In focus: Early censorship and the question of who goes to the movies
The National Board of Censorship and the Mutual case
In development
Comedies, westerns, and melodramas: The genres of the nickelodeon age
The western
Slapstick comedy
Case study 2.1: The problem of slapstick
Gender genres: The New Woman
The names above and below the title
Florence Lawrence and the invention of the "movie star"
D. W. Griffith
Lois Weber: Lost pioneer of early cinema
Case study 2.2: Telling stories with pictures: Lois Weber's Suspense
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Movie palaces, corner theaters, and tent shows: The silent era and the first
Hollywood, 1915-192S
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The premiere of The Clansman, later The Birth uf a Nation, at dune's Auditorium,
Los Angeles, February 8, 1915
Case study 3.1: To screen or not to screen - the problem of The Birth of a Nation
A typical silent bill at a small-town movie theater, 1920
Case study 3.2: "Silent" movies? The role of sound in the silent era
A screening of The ]azz Singer at the Garrick Theatre, downtown Chicago, December 1927
Screen ages
In the silent era: Liberation and repression
The business of the movies: The rise of the studio system and vertical integration
Counter-reactions to vertical integration: Star power
Liberation arid repression II: Celebrity, scandal, and censorship
The .VIPPDA and self-censorship
In development ..
.VIelodrama ■
Movies as art/art movies
Erich Von Stroheim
F. W. Murnau
Genres of gentler: The girl next door, the vamp, and the flapper
The names above and below the title
.Mary Pickford
Oscar Micheaux and bLick cinema
Three giants of silent comedy: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd
Charlie Chaplin
Buster Keaton
Harold Lloyd
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4. The studios era: Dominance and diversity in the Golden Age of
Hollywood, 1929-1948
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A pre-Code screening of The Public Enemy at the Strand Theatre, New York, 1931
A ten-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr., dressed as a plantation field hand, sings in a
black Baptist choir at the Atlanta premiere of Cone with the Wind,
December 14, 1939
A Saturday afternoon matinee, 1943
Screen ages
The movies in Depression-era America
The studio system
Studio factories and house sr>'les
Overview of house styles: The Big Five
Metro Goldwyn Mayer: Glitz and glamor
Case study 4.1: The Wizard of Oz and the Great Depression
Paramount Pictures: Polish and sophistication
Warner Brothers: Gritt>' realism
20th Century Fox: Ail-American populism
RKO: Variety and experimentation
The "Little Three": Universal, Columbia, and United Artists
Universal Pictures
Columbia Pictures
United Artists
Poverty Row and independent filmmaking
Hollywood and World War II £
The trauma of war -
Censorship and the Production Code
The Paramount Decision and the end of the studios era
In development
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Genres of gender: Film noir, the hardboiled detective, and the femme fatale
Case study 4,2: The Production Code in action: The case of Double Indemnity
Animation in the studios era
The names above and below the title
Orson Welles
Walt Disney
Dorothy Arzner
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5. Theaters, drive-ins, and living rooms: Changing screens, changing movies,
1949-1966 r
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The premiere of The Ten Comniandments at the Criterion Theatre, New York City,
November 8, 1956
A showing of Beach Party at a drive-in theater, 1963 ^
A television episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents^ Jamjary 3, 1960
Screen ages
1949-1966: Conformity and contention
Hollywood after the Paramount Decision: Divestment and diversification
The rise of the agents: MCA, Universal, and diversification
McCarthyism, the Cold War, and the blacklist
Hollywood and the world
International inlluences
The end of the Production Code and the beginnings of the ratings system
In development
The western
Science fiction
Genres of gender in the 1950s and early 1960s: Marilyn Monroe and
James Dean/R(Kk Hudson and Doris Day
Case study 5.1: A new kind of acting: Movies and the Method
The names above and below the title
John Ford
Nicholas Ray
Case study 5.2: Constructing the teenager: Images of youth in 1950s screen experiences
Alfred Hitchcock
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6. Movies big and small: Art movies, blockbusters, and the new Hollvwood,
1967-19S0
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Watching Naslwille at a suburban multiplex, summer 1975
A college film society screening of The Godfather, October 1976
Star Wars premieres at Mann's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood, May 1977
Case study 6.1: Star Wars and its sources
Screen ages
The turning point
Screen experiences big and small
The ratings system
Vietnam and the end of the American empire
Getting bigger by getting smaller
Case study 6.2: Youth culture and Hollywood: The case of Easy Rider
Sequels and franchises
In development
Comedy in the 1970s: Woody Allen and .Mel Brooks
Blaxploitarion movies
Genres of gender: Nontraditional leading men: Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Richard Dreyfuss
Dustin Hoffman
Al Pacino
Richard Dreyfuss
The names above and below the title
Jane Fonda
Steven Spielberg
.Vlartin Scorsese J
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7. Shopping malls, video stores, and cable TV: Movies in tbe franchise era,
1981-1997
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Sex. Lies, and Videotape screens at the Utah/US Film Festival, January 1989
A family watches Raiders of the Lost Ark on HBO in their home, 1984
College students "watch a VHS copy of Pidp Fiction in their college dorm room, 1997
Screen ages
Opposing forces in the franchise era
The movie business in the 1980s
.Vlovies in the 1980s and 1990s: Bigger, louder, costlier
The example of Ramho
Alternatives to the blockbuster: The rise of indie movies
Case study 7.1: What makes an indie movie an indie movie?
In development
Slasher movies
Case study 7.2: Why do we like horror movies?
John Hughes and new teen movies
Cienres of gender: The bodybuilder hero
The names above and below the title
Spike Lee
Susan Scidelman, Amy Heckerling, .Martha Coolidge
Quentin Tarantino
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8. The digital era: Back to the future, 1994-present
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Titanic plays on a small screen embedded in the back of an airplane seat, 1998
Two high school students watch a VHS cassette of The Phantom Edit on a hoi ■
entertainment center, 2001
A college film student watches The Rirth of a Nation on YouTube, 2010
Screen ages
The digital age: A new dawn of cinema
Freedom and control: The push and pull of the digital age
Globalization, 9/11, and the movies
The continuing importance of DIY and indie cinema
From The Matrix to Her: Fear and hope for the future
In development
Television versus movies/television as movies
The comic-book movie
Bromanccs and chick flicks
The names above and below the title
Kathryn Bigelow
Wes Anderson
Lena Dunham
The persistence of the indie ideal
Gender and the movies i
Case study 8.1: Pick a "typical" movie 'i
Multiple screens/multiple "movies": Everything is cinema •
Accessibility and unpredictability: Everyone's a moviemaker
Case study 8.2: The future of the movies
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