Transnational Trailblazers Of Early Cinema

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. At the forefront of the entertainment industries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were singular actors: Sarah Bernhardt, Gabrielle Réjane, and Mistinguett. Talented and formidable women with global ambitions, these performers forged connections with audiences across the world while pioneering the use of film and theatrics to gain international renown. Transnational Trailblazers of Early Cinema traces how these women emerged from the Parisian periphery to become world-famous stars. Building upon extensive archival research in France, England, and the United States, Victoria Duckett argues that, through intrepid business prowess and the use of early multimedia to cultivate their celebrity image, these three artists strengthened ties between countries, continents, and cultures during pivotal years of change.

Essays on “how motion pictures in the first two decades of the 20th century constructed ‘communities of nationality’ . . . recommended.” —Choice While many studies have been written on national cinemas, Early Cinema and the “National” is the first anthology to focus on the concept of national film culture from a wide methodological spectrum of interests, including not only visual and narrative forms, but also international geopolitics, exhibition and marketing practices, and pressing linkages to national imageries. The essays in this richly illustrated landmark anthology are devoted to reconsidering the nation as a framing category for writing cinema history. Many of the 34 contributors show that concepts of a national identity played a role in establishing the parameters of cinema’s early development, from technological change to discourses of stardom, from emerging genres to intertitling practices. Yet, as others attest, national meanings could often become knotty in other contexts, when concepts of nationhood were contested in relation to colonial/imperial histories and regional configurations. Early Cinema and the “National” takes stock of a formative moment in cinema history, tracing the beginnings of the process whereby nations learned to imagine themselves through moving images.

In this book, editors Mario Slugan and Daniël Biltereyst present a theoretical reconceptualization of early cinema. To do so, they highlight the latest methods and tools for analysis, and cast new light on the experience of early cinema through the application of these concepts and methods. The international host of contributors evaluate examples of early cinema across the globe, including The May Irwin Kiss (1896), Un homme de têtes (1900), The Terrible Turkish Executioner (1904) and Tom Tom the Piper's Son (1905). In doing so, they address the periodization of the era, emphasizing the recent boon in the availability of primary materials, the rise of digital technologies, the developments in new cinema history, and the persistence of some conceptualizations as key incentives for rethinking early cinema in theoretical and methodological terms. They go on to highlight cutting-edge approaches to the study of early cinema, including the use of the Mediathread Platform, the formation of new datasets with the help of digital technologies, and exploring the early era in non-western cultures. Finally, the contributors revisit early cinema audiences and exhibition contexts by investigating some of the earliest screenings in Denmark and the US, exploring the details of black cinema going in Harlem, and examining exhibition practices in Germany.

This book marks the 10th anniversary of the Routledge journal Transnational Cinemas, and its renaming to Transnational Screens. The introduction reflects on the changing ways in which film is produced, distributed and consumed with the emergence of streamed content providers. Each chapter expands on previous scholarship and interrogates key areas of transnational cinema. Taken together they revisit key concepts of transnational cinema; explore the relationship between transnational and world cinema; analyse performances of cosmopolitanism; examine exoticism and nostalgia in contemporary transnational cinema; present the ‘rooted transnationalism’ of Moroccan diasporic filmmakers; reflect on how films from around the world convey ‘foreignness’; consider cross border solidarity and collaboration behind transnational talent development; explore transnational film eco-criticism from the perspectives of governance and aesthetics; and reflect on the changing nature of transnational screen studies through the concept of second phase transnationalism. Written by leading scholars, this book looks at the key developments in the field of transnational film and screen studies. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the journal, Transnational Screens.

Topics include: from national to transnational cinema; global cinema in the digital age; motion pictures: film, migration and diaspora; tourists and terrorists.

The attempt to produce films for the international market has led to lively exchanges and meeting points between local and national identity discourses and global processes of identity formation. Co-productions alone can no longer be seen as an incentive for national cultural production. Rather, it is necessary to regard co-productions as a privileged site for an analysis of the relations between identity, nation, and culture. Transnational Cinema in Europe is the result of a collaboration of two research groups in Madrid and Vienna. The book consists of articles by members of both research groups, as well as by several other experts. (Series: Contributions to the European Theater, Film and Media Studies / Beitrage zur europaischen Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft - Vol. 4)

The history of cinema charts multiple histories of exile. From the German émigrés in 1930s Hollywood to today's Iranian filmmakers in Europe and the United States, these histories continue to exert a profound influence on the evolution of cinematic narratives and aesthetics. But while the effect of exile and diaspora on film practice has been fruitfully explored from both historical and contemporary perspectives, the issues raised by return, whether literal or metaphorical, have yet to be fully considered. Cinematic Homecomings expands upon existing studies of transnational cinema by addressing the questions raised by reverse migration and the return home in a variety of historical and national contexts, from postcolonialism to post-Communism. By looking beyond exile, the contributors offer a multidirectional perspective on the relationship between migration, mobility, and transnational cinema. 'Narratives of return' are among the most popular themes of the contemporary cinema of countries ranging from Morocco to Cuba to the Soviet Union. This speaks to both the sociocultural reality of reverse migration and to its significance on the imagination of the nation.

The period 1907–1913 marks a crucial transitional moment in American cinema. As moving picture shows changed from mere novelty to an increasingly popular entertainment, fledgling studios responded with longer running times and more complex storytelling. A growing trade press and changing production procedures also influenced filmmaking. In Early American Cinema in Transition, Charlie Keil looks at a broad cross-section of fiction films to examine the formal changes in cinema of this period and the ways that filmmakers developed narrative techniques to suit the fifteen-minute, one-reel format. Keil outlines the kinds of narratives that proved most suitable for a single reel’s duration, the particular demands that time and space exerted on this early form of film narration, and the ways filmmakers employed the unique features of a primarily visual medium to craft stories that would appeal to an audience numbering in the millions. He underscores his analysis with a detailed look at six films: The Boy Detective; The Forgotten Watch; Rose O’Salem-Town; Cupid’s Monkey Wrench; Belle Boyd, A Confederate Spy; and Suspense.