Category Archives: Publications

Silent Cinema

March 31, 2007 By in General, Publications 2 Comments

Silent Cinema

http://www.amazon.co.uk

Silent Cinema by Brian J. Robb is a new publication on the subject for the general reader that seems to have come out of nowhere. The author has previously written books on Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves and Brad Pitt, while for for Kamera Books this is their first book. The blurb promises: “Through a study of the earliest origins of cinema to the stars, comedians and directors who became popular from the late-Victorian ear [sic] to the end of the 1920s, and including a look at the earliest Hollywood scandals of the time, ‘Silent Cinema’ will be a handy guide to the art of cinema’s silent years in Hollywood and across the globe.” It also comes with a DVD including extracts from Son of the Sheik, Phantom of the Opera, The Perils of Pauline, Salome and Orphans of the Storm. And it’s only £5.95 on Amazon.co.uk at the moment. Must be worth a punt.

The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded

March 22, 2007 By in Criticism and theory, Publications

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The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded is new publication from Amsterdam University Press, edited by Wanda Strauven. Here’s some blurb:

Twenty years ago, Tom Gunning and André Gaudreault introduced the concept of attraction to define the quintessence of the earliest films made between 1895 and 1906. As ‘cinema of attractions’ this concept has become widely adopted, even outside the field of early cinema. Ranging from the films of the Lumière brothers to The Matrix by Andy and Larry Wachowski, from trains rushing into the audience to bullet time effects, the ‘cinema of attractions’ is a cinema that shocks, astonishes and directly addresses the film spectator.

This anthology traces the history of the ‘cinema of attractions,’ reconstructs its conception and questions its significance for early cinema, avant-garde cinema, (New) Hollywood cinema, up to recent media applications such as virtual reality and computer games. With contributions by Christa Blümlinger, Warren Buckland, Scott Bukatman, Donald Crafton, Nicolas Dulac, Thomas Elsaesser, André Gaudreault, Laurent Guido, Tom Gunning, Malte Hagener, Pierre-Emmanuel Jaques, Charlie Keil, Frank Kessler, Germain Lacasse, Alison McMahan, Charles Musser, Viva Paci, Eivind Røssaak, Vivian Sobchack, Wanda Strauven, Dick Tomasovic.

Ford Sterling biography

March 9, 2007 By in Performers, Publications 1 Comment

Ford Sterling

http://www.amazon.co.uk

Ford Sterling is one of the forgotten comedians of the silent era, known if at all as the Keystone comedian whose brief star was eclipsed by the arrival of Charlie Chaplin. A new biography by Wendy Warwick White (presumably the first devoted to Sterling) ought to do much to overturn assumptions and revive his reputation. Blurbs for the books indicate that he left behind a comfortable, middle-class childhood to journey via circus, vaudeville, burlesque, Shakespeare and Broadway to achieving fame as a silent film comedian. His film career was not ended by Chaplin’s rise, instead he became a successful character player and made a successful transition to sound. He was a cartoonist, photographer, and became a millionaire. But this once famous figure has been left aside by history. Sterling’s films are probably only ever going to be of interest to the specialist now, but this sounds like a personal history well worth recovering. Ford Sterling: The Life and Films is published by McFarland.

James Joyce and the Volta

February 22, 2007 By in Cinemas, People, Publications 1 Comment

The latest issue of the James Joyce Quarterly (vols. 42/43. 1.4) has a feature section on Joyce on film, which includes an essay by Philip Sicker, “Evenings at the Volta: Cinematic Afterimages in Joyce”. James Joyce was the manager of the Volta Cinematograph, Dublin’s (and Ireland’s) first cinema, over December 1909-January 1910, and remained associated with the business for a couple of months thereafter. There has been growing academic interest in the films ‘programmed’ by Joyce for the Volta, though it is a matter of debate just how much Joyce was aware of the films he was programming, or particularly concerned about them. Sicker provides the closest analysis yet of the kinds of films shown at the Volta during its period under Joyce’s charge, including discussion of extant prints and an exploration of the degree to which traces of these can arguably be traced in Joyce’s own work. A filmography of all titles shown at the Volta December 1909-April 1910, including extant prints, researched by Luke McKernan, was published in Film and Film Culture vol. 3 (2004). It is not easy to find, and any researcher interested in the filmography and the article on the background to the Volta that went with it should get in touch.

Birt Acres on CD

February 15, 2007 By in Filmmakers, People, Publications

It is perhaps inevitable, given the different trajectories of the twin pioneers of British film, Birt Acres and Robert Paul, that while the latter gets the deluxe DVD treatment from the BFI (see previous post) with book to follow, his one-time partner and later bitter rival Acres has his biography published on CD from a small publisher for the interest of the select few. While Paul became a rich and successful man, noted in all film histories, Acres’ name remains little known, his work unfamiliar even to specialists in the field. Frontiersman to Film-maker: The Biography of Film Pioneer Birt Acres, FRPS, FRMetS 1854-1918, published by The Projection Box, is worth checking out by anyone interested in the earliest years of filmmaking, and in seeing how family history can be used to humanise people from this remote period of film history. The biography is written by Alan Birt Acres, his grandson, and tells the story of the man who was the first person to take and project a 35mm film in the UK. Not all of it stands up to rigorous historical enquiry, but it conjures up a credible picture of the man, is beautifully illustrated, and offers plenty of leads for those keen to research further the still mysterious roots of filmmaking in the 1890s.

Cinema Context 2

February 13, 2007 By in Business, Distribution, Publications

Special issue Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis (TMG):

Cinema in Context

Last year, Dutch film historian Karel Dibbets launched the website Cinema Context (see post on February 10th), an on-line database of Dutch cinema culture. Cinema Context aspires to become a new standard among the digital reference sources, comparable to the Internet Movie Database which was put on-line in 1996 by film buff and computer freak Col Needham and which since then has become an indispensable source for millions of film lovers and scholars worldwide. Whereas IMDb mainly offers film production data, Cinema Context is a research tool for the study of film programming and distribution.

Dibbets launched his website during the Cinema in Context conference (Amsterdam, 20-21 April 2006), where several projects of the international research group Homer (History of Moviegoing, Exhibition and Reception) were presented. The conference addressed the urgent question of the future of film studies, in general, and film history, in particular. Anno 2006, film history proved to be in a dynamic but problematic phase. Which direction will we take in the coming years? Can we collaborate more and in which ways? How do we deal with the growing but very diversified digital sources? What will be their role in our future research? Which questions are pertinent and which technologies do we need? Lastly, have we reached the limits of our territory?

This special issue of Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis (2006/2), edited by Ivo Blom and Wanda Strauven, documents the important debate of the Cinema in Context conference. It deals with burning questions such as local vs. national identity, film history vs. cultural geography, ‘factual’ history writing, consumerism, and the state and availability of film historical research. The issue contains the four keynote papers (in English) of the conference, and two Dutch contributions. All articles have English written summaries. The issue also contains a list of relevant websites.

Contents:

‘Cinema in context: het einde van filmstudies?’, by Ivo Blom & Wanda Strauven

‘The place of space in film historiography’, by Robert C. Allen

Cinema Context en onderzoek naar sociale netwerken binnen de filmgeschiedschrijving: een aanzet tot discussie’, by André van der Velden, Thunnis van Oort, Fransje de Jong and Clara Pafort Overduin

‘Het taboe van de Nederlandse filmcultuur. Neutraal in een verzuild land’, by Karel Dibbets

‘Just the Facts, M’am?’ A Short History of Ambivalence Towards Empiricism in Cinema Studies’, by Ian Christie

‘On the Prospect of Writing Cinema History from Below’, by Richard Maltby

‘Local cinema histories in France: An Overview’, by Jean-Jacques Meusy

You can order the Cinema in Context issue (€ 25 excl.) at Boom Publishers.

E-mail: m.siemons@boomonderwijs.nl

Address: Boom Publishers, Martine Siemons, Prinsengracht 747, 1017 JX, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Limelight and music hall

February 12, 2007 By in Publications

Limelight

http://www.amazon.co.uk

Chaplin’s “Limelight” and the Music Hall Tradition is a new publication, edited by Frank Scheide and Hooman Mehran. The collection of essays covers Chaplin’s film Limelight (1952) and the history of the English music hall. The book is the second in the ‘Chaplin Review’ series, the first of which – Chaplin: The Dictator and the Tramp – was published by the BFI in 2004. The second book has been published by McFarland, and a third volume is in preparation.

Electric Edwardians

February 5, 2007 By in Publications

You’ve seen the television series, you may have seen a live show, you’ve bought the DVD, you’ve bought the book, now it’s time to buy another book. The BFI has just published Electric Edwardians: The Films of Mitchell and Kenyon, by Vanessa Toulmin. This is a detailed single history of the films of Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon, lovingly illustrated with sumptuous frame stills from the extraordinary film collection of actuality films produced by the Blackburn firm before the First World War. It feels like the last word to be said on the collection, but it shouldn’t be. The book gives every encouragement for us all to take the subject further, both as film history and as a means to inform social history.

Americanizing the movies

February 4, 2007 By in Publications

Americanizing the Movies

http://www.amazon.co.uk

Richard Abel’s latest look is Americanizing the Movies and “Movie-Mad” Audiences, 1910-1914. Its subject is the relationship between early cinema and the construction of a national identity. Abel analyses film distribution and exhibition practices to reconstruct a context for understanding moviegoing at a time when American cities were coming to grips with new groups of immigrants and women working outside the home. It makes use of a hugely impressive range of archival sources archive prints, the trade press, fan magazines, newspaper advertising, reviews, and syndicated columns.