Synopses & Reviews
Focusing on early cinema's relationship with the pictorial arts, this pioneering study explores how cinema's emergence was grounded in theories of picture composition, craft and arts education - from magic lantern experiments in 1890s New York through to early Hollywood feature films in the 1920s.
Challenging received notions that the advent of cinema was a celebration of mechanisation and a radical rejection of nineteenth-century traditions of representation, Kaveh Askari instead emphasises the overlap between craft traditions and modernity in early film.
Opening up valuable new perspectives on the history of film as art, Askari links American silent cinema with the practice of teaching the public how to appreciate fine art; charts its entrance into arts education via art schools and university film courses;
shows how concepts of artistic production entered films through a material interest in the studio; and examines the way in which Maurice Tourneur and Rex Ingram made early art films by shaping an image of the film director around the idea of the fine artist.
Review
'A major contribution to film history and theory, and film's relation to other media.' - Tom Gunning, University of Chicago, USA
'This enterprising work will ultimately transform our understanding of cinema's early artistic tendencies. Kaveh Askari's examination of how film intersected with academia, the lyceum circuit, and the art studio brings to light institutional connections that reveal novel functions for a medium struggling for cultural legitimacy.' - Charlie Keil, University of Toronto, Canada
Synopsis
This fascinating study charts the emergence of American cinema, from pre-cinematic entertainment in the 1890s to early Hollywood. Providing valuable new perspectives on the history of film as art, Kaveh Askari explores how these early forms of cinema related to the visual arts, new arts education theories and other social changes of the time.
About the Author
Kaveh Askari is Associate Professor of Film Studies at Western Washington University, USA. He is the author of numerous articles on early cinema.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Rewinding art cinema
Situating cinema among the other arts
Craft, picture, movement
Aesthetic appreciation and the modernity of picture craft
Chapter organisation
1 Moving-picture Art before Cinema: Alexander Black and the Lyceum
The amateur and the institute
The detective lectures and the instantaneous tableau
From 'the horse in motion' to 'man in motion'
Picture play aesthetics: still pictures as moving pictures
Picture play reception: art cinema without the cinematograph
Conclusion: a history without an invention
2 Moving Pictures Imagine the Artist's Studio
The mise en scène of the studio
The moving image jumps the frame
Trilbyana: Transformation and absorption
Lejaren à Hiller's Never-told Tales of a Studio
Triart Picture Company: From Trilbyana to art history
Conclusion: patchwork methods, common goal
3 Cinema Composition: The University and the Industry
Picture study: from the art lecture to the film lecture
Movement, contemplation and the 'tableau'
Managing tableaux: the economics of film spectatorship
Beyond the tableau: inscribing movement
Conclusion: moving pictures and new tendencies
4 Painting with Human Beings: Maurice Tourneur as Art-film Director
In the atelier of Puvis
Quality films, imported film-makers
The Blue Bird: From The Yellow Book to the yellow press
Conclusion: Tourneur after 1920
5 Rex Ingram's Art School Cinema
The oldest art school and the newest art
From exceptional style to cross-media appreciation
Scaramouche, or convergence
Conclusion: the limits of exceptional films
Conclusion: Moving Forward from the Slow Movie
Notes
Index