From the kinetoscope, designed for use by one viewer at a time, to the lavish movie palaces of Hollywood's golden era, the experience of watching films has varied enormously across the film industry. Exhibition, The Film Reader explores the range of venues in which films have been shown, following the fluctuating status of film and the continuning struggle over audiences. Contributors trace the emergence of a culture of moviegoing, exploring the meanings conveyed to spectators through exhibition sites and practices, and raising key issues of distribution, access and consumption. How
does the experience of moviegoing differ from television? Why did the corporate anonymity replace the individual flair of movie palace design? And how have changes in film exhibition influenced filmmakers? Sections include:
* Where the movies were traces the changing landscape of movie theatres, from the segregated nickelodeons of the silent era to the rise of art houses and mall theatres
* The business of exhibition explores tensions between film producers and exhibitions, covering the major shifts in power from the emergence of chains in the 1920s, to the destruction of the movie palaces and the rise of the multiplex
* The meanings of the exhibition site focuses on the experience of watching films in the fantastic word of movie palaces and on televison, and explores issues of gendered space in the movie theatre and public versus private viewing rituals. Contributors: Dudley Andrew, Anthony Downs, Gary Edgerton,
Anne Firedberg, Kathryn Helgesen Fuller, Douglas Gomery, Thomas Guback, Ben M. Hall, Ina Rae Hark, Charlotte Herzog, Russell Meritt, William Paul, Suzanne I. Schiller, Gregory Waller, Barbara Wilinsky. Includes essays by: Dudley Andrew, Anthony Downs, Gary Edgerton, Anne Friedberg, Kathryn Helgesen
Fuller, Douglas Gomery, Thomas Guback, Ben M. Hall, Ina Rae
Hark, Charlotte Herzog, Russell Meritt, Wi
Edited by:
Ina Rae Hark
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 15mm
Weight: 430g
ISBN: 9780415235174
ISBN 10: 0415235170
Series: In Focus: Routledge Film Readers
Pages: 204
Publication Date: 20 December 2001
Audience:
College/higher education
,
General/trade
,
Professional and scholarly
,
A / AS level
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
"Part I - Where the movies were: the nickelodeon theatre 1905-1914 - building an audience for the movies, Russell Merritt; another audience - black movie-going from 1907-1916, Gregory Waller; nickelodeon nomenclature - the urban picture palaces, Kathryn Helgesen Fuller; the movie palace and the theatrical sources of its architectural style, Charlotte Herzog; discourses on art house in the 1950s, Barbara Wilinsky; the K-Mart audience at the mall movies, William Paul. Part 2 - The business of exhibition: the rise of national theatre chains - Balaban and Katz postscript, Douglas Gregory; the relationship between motion picture distribution and exhibition - an analysis of the effects of anti-blind bidding legislation, Suzanne I. Schiller; where the drive-in fits into the movie industry, Anthony Downs; the evolution of the motion picture theatre business in the 1980s, Thomas Guback. Part 3 - The meanings of the exhibition site, Thomas Guback; an acre of seats in a garden of dreams - the stage moves to the screen, Ben M. Hall; the ""theatre man"" and ""the girl in the box office"", Ina Rae Hark; the multiplex - the modern American motion picture theatre as message, Gary Edgerton, film and society - public rituals and private space, Dudley Andrew; spectatorial bibliography, Anne Friedberg."
Ina Rae Hark is Professor of English and Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of South Carolina. She is co-editor with Steven Cohan of The Road Movie Book (Routledge 1997) and Screening the Male (Routldge 1993).
