He was even there on that memorable night in April 1896, when Edison's marvelous Vitascope premiered. A few years ago, before his marriage, he had occasionally visited Koster and Bial's Music Hall in search of light amusement. Josiah has seen moving pictures, though not recently. Barely paying attention to his progress, he wanders down Broadway, past the expensive ladies' stores, and eventually finds himself on the Bowery in front of the Electric Theatre, a storefront picture show festooned with luridly colored posters. It's an unusually hot evening in the spring of 1909, Josiah's wife Lydia has taken the children to visit her parents in Connecticut, and he has taken to the Manhattan streets, seeking fresh air and distractions. Your companion is an imaginary New York City lawyer by the name of Josiah Evans, a man with a civic conscience who belongs to several progressive reform organizations.
And none of the above bears any responsibility for errors, incorrect interpretations, or anything else that reviewers may criticize.Īmuse yourself with a little armchair time travel. And now for the usual disclaimers: I apologize to anyone I have omitted from the above list. My cats, Henry and Keaton, together with the Duke University basketball team, provided much-needed distraction.
David Black saved countless hours of my time by marking films for frame enlargements, and Cathy Holter produced legible images from much-used 16mm prints. Chapter 7 reflects our discussions about two forthcoming coauthored works, Cultural Crisis, Cultural Cure? The Case of the Vitagraph "High-Art" Moving Pictures (Princeton University Press) and "The Nickel Madness": The Struggle Over New York City's Nickelodeons (Smithsonian Institution Press). William Uricchio gave me moral support throughout the sometimes trying manuscript review process and made suggestions about the form of the conclusion when I was heartily tired of the whole project. James Naremore provided a very helpful reading of the first draft of the book. Tom Gunning read the manuscript at two crucial stages, offering insightful criticisms and suggestions, many of which I have incorporated.
Richard deCordova kindly gave me a copy of his dissertation. Pamela MacFarland Holway and Ellen Stein provided painstaking copyediting leavened with intelligence and humor.ĭuring the revision process, Charles Musser shared many prepublication versions of his various books and articles with me, as well as some excellentĪdvice.
Ernest Callenbach read the manuscript in dissertation form, told me how to turn it into a book, and has been a wonderfully encouraging editor. David Paletz harassed me both about finishing the dissertation and revising the manuscript for publication, and, in retrospect, I thank him. Carol Zucker and Vivian Sobchack both published early versions of chapters: "The Modesty of Nature: A Semiotic Approach to Acting in the Griffith Biographs," in Carol Zucker, ed., Making Visible the Invisible: An Anthology of Original Essays on Film Acting (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1990), and "Cultivated Folks and the Better Classes: Class Conflict and Representation in Early American Film," Journal of Popular Film and Television 15:3 (Fall 1987): 120–28. New York University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences provided a Dean's Dissertation Fellowship that gave me nine months of writing time. Ann Harris and the rest of the staff of the Film Study Center at New York University's Department of Cinema Studies always had stacks of Biographs ready for viewing and kept the Steenbecks running. Jay Leyda and Brooks McNamara also served on the committee. Perhaps pride of place should go to William Simon, who emerged from his office one day saying, "Why don't you write a dissertation on silent film acting?" Robert Sklar, my dissertation advisor, and Robert Stam, the other member of my core committee, helped bring the idea to fruition, contributing their own perspectives along the way. Many people have offered various kinds of assistance in the process of a project that has gone from dissertation proposal to book.