[PDF] Dw Griffith And The Origins Of American Narrative Film eBook

Author : Tom Gunning
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 334 pages
File Size : 24,11 MB
Release : 1994
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780252063664

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The legendary filmmaker D. W. Griffith directed nearly 200 films during 1908 and 1909, his first years with the Biograph Company. While those one-reel films are a testament to Griffith's inspired genius as a director, they also reflect a fundamental shift in film style from "cheap amusements" to movie storytelling complete with characters and narrative impetus. In this comprehensive historical investigation, drawing on films preserved by the Library of Congress and the Museum of Modern Art, Tom Gunning reveals that the remarkable cinematic changes between 1900 and 1915 were a response to the radical reorganization within the film industry and the evolving role of film in American society. The Motion Picture Patents Company, the newly formed Film Trust, had major economic aspirations. The newly emerging industry's quest for a middle-class audience triggered Griffith's early experiments in film editing and imagery. His unique solutions permanently shaped American narrative film.

Author : Charles Keil
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 624 pages
File Size : 39,54 MB
Release : 2018-02-05
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 1118341252

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The most comprehensive volume on one of the most controversial directors in American film history A Companion to D.W. Griffith offers an exhaustive look at the first acknowledged auteur of the cinema and provides an authoritative account of the director’s life, work, and lasting filmic legacy. The text explores how Griffith’s style and status advanced along with cinema’s own development during the years when narrative became the dominant mode, when the short gave way to the feature, and when film became the pre-eminent form of mass entertainment. Griffith was at the centre of each of these changes: though a contested figure, he remains vital to any understanding of how cinema moved from nickelodeon fixture to a national pastime, playing a significant role in the cultural ethos of America. With the renewed interest in Griffith’s contributions to the film industry, A Companion to D.W. Griffith offers a scholarly look at a career that spanned more than 25 years. The editor, a leading scholar on D.W. Griffith, and the expert contributors collectively offer a unique account of one of the monumental figures in film studies. Presents the most authoritative, complete account of the director’s life, work, and lasting legacy Builds on the recent resurgence in the director’s scholarly and popular reputation Edited by a leading authority on D.W. Griffith, who has published extensively on this controversial director Offers the most up-to-date, singularly comprehensive volume on one of the monumental figures in film studies

Author : Marilyn Fabe
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 35,84 MB
Release : 2014-10-14
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 0520279972

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"Through detailed examinations of passages from classic films, Marilyn Fabe supplies the analytic tools and background in film history and theory to enable us to see more in every film we watch"--Page [4] of cover.

Author : Roberta E. Pearson
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 45,90 MB
Release : 1992
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780520073654

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"Pearson writes beautifully, clearly, and entertainingly (with a touch of sardonic sarcasm here and there). This is the single best work centering on performance in film that I have read."--Thomas Gunning, author of D. W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film

Author : Robert Lang
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 47,76 MB
Release : 1994
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780813520278

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The birth of a nation follows the lives of two white families divided by, and enduring, the American Civil War, and includes elaborate cameos of historical events such as the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Author : Melvyn Stokes
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 741 pages
File Size : 39,14 MB
Release : 2008-01-15
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 0199887519

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In this deeply researched and vividly written volume, Melvyn Stokes illuminates the origins, production, reception and continuing history of this ground-breaking, aesthetically brilliant, and yet highly controversial movie. By going back to the original archives, particularly the NAACP and D. W. Griffith Papers, Stokes explodes many of the myths surrounding The Birth of a Nation (1915). Yet the story that remains is fascinating: the longest American film of its time, Griffith's film incorporated many new features, including the first full musical score compiled for an American film. It was distributed and advertised by pioneering methods that would quickly become standard. Through the high prices charged for admission and the fact that it was shown, at first, only in "live" theaters with orchestral accompaniment, Birth played a major role in reconfiguring the American movie audience by attracting more middle-class patrons. But if the film was a milestone in the history of cinema, it was also undeniably racist. Stokes shows that the darker side of this classic movie has its origins in the racist ideas of Thomas Dixon, Jr. and Griffith's own Kentuckian background and earlier film career. The book reveals how, as the years went by, the campaign against the film became increasingly successful. In the 1920s, for example, the NAACP exploited the fact that the new Ku Klux Klan, which used Griffith's film as a recruiting and retention tool, was not just anti-black, but also anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish, as a way to mobilize new allies in opposition to the film. This crisply written book sheds light on both the film's racism and the aesthetic brilliance of Griffith's filmmaking. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the cinema.

Author : Richard Schickel
Publisher : Hal Leonard Corporation
Page : 675 pages
File Size : 37,83 MB
Release : 1996-01-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 087910080X

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He transformed a nickelodeon novelty into a new art form and a powerful, glamorous American industry. He codified the rules and techniques of screen story-telling, and pioneered the conventions that brought films to life, from surging spectacle to soul-baring close-ups. A poor farm boy from the South, Griffith rose to fame with The Birth of a Nation, a cinematic masterpiece stained by the racism that infected his heritage. Though he went on to direct some of the most legendary films of the silent era, Griffith was doomed by his over-reaching drives, and he died an embittered man, shunned by the community he had largely created. His story is told here with unsparing truth and compelling narrative sweep.

Author : Paul McEwan
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Page : 323 pages
File Size : 30,74 MB
Release : 2022-12-13
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 1477325514

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For over a century, cinephiles and film scholars have had to grapple with an ugly artifact that sits at the beginnings of film history. D. W. Griffith’s profoundly racist epic, The Birth of a Nation, inspired controversy and protest at its 1915 release and was defended as both a true history of Reconstruction (although it was based on fiction) and a new achievement in cinematic art. Paul McEwan examines the long and shifting history of its reception, revealing how the film became not just a cinematic landmark but also an influential force in American aesthetics and intellectual life. In every decade since 1915, filmmakers, museums, academics, programmers, and film fans have had to figure out how to deal with this troublesome object, and their choices have profoundly influenced both film culture and the notion that films can be works of art. Some critics tried to set aside the film’s racism and concentrate on the form, while others tried to relegate that racism safely to the past. McEwan argues that from the earliest film retrospectives in the 1920s to the rise of remix culture in the present day, controversies about this film and its meaning have profoundly shaped our understandings of film, race, and art.