Jon Lewis

Jonathan Lewis

Eric Smoodin

DIVA collection of essays illustrating new methods and theories of film history./div

Case Studies in American Film History and Method

Looking Past the Screen

In Paris in the Dark Eric Smoodin takes readers on a journey through the streets, cinemas, and theaters of Paris to sketch a comprehensive picture of French film culture during the 1930s and 1940s. Drawing on a wealth of journalistic sources, Smoodin recounts the ways films moved through the city, the favored stars, and what it was like to go to the movies in a city with hundreds of cinemas. In a single week in the early 1930s, moviegoers might see Hollywood features like King Kong and Frankenstein, the new Marlene Dietrich and Maurice Chevalier movies, and any number of films from Italy, Germany, and Russia. Or they could frequent the city's ciné-clubs, which were hosts to the cinéphile subcultures of Paris. At other times, a night at the movies might result in an evening of fascist violence, even before the German Occupation of Paris, while after the war the city's cinemas formed the space for reconsolidating French film culture. In mapping the cinematic geography of Paris, Smoodin expands understandings of local film exhibition and the relationships of movies to urban space.

Going to the Movies in the City of Light, 1930–1950

Paris in the Dark

Film scholarship has long been dominated by textual interpretations of specific films. Looking Past the Screen advances a more expansive American film studies in which cinema is understood to be a social, political, and cultural phenomenon extending far beyond the screen. Presenting a model of film studies in which films themselves are only one source of information among many, this volume brings together film histories that draw on primary sources including collections of personal papers, popular and trade journalism, fan magazines, studio publications, and industry records. Focusing on Hollywood cinema from the teens to the 1970s, these case studies show the value of this extraordinary range of historical materials in developing interdisciplinary approaches to film stardom, regulation, reception, and production. The contributors examine State Department negotiations over the content of American films shown abroad; analyze the star image of Clara Smith Hamon, who was notorious for having murdered her lover; and consider film journalists’ understanding of the arrival of auteurist cinema in Hollywood as it was happening during the early 1970s. One contributor chronicles the development of film studies as a scholarly discipline; another offers a sociopolitical interpretation of the origins of film noir. Still another brings to light Depression-era film reviews and Production Code memos so sophisticated in their readings of representations of sexuality that they undermine the perception that queer interpretations of film are a recent development. Looking Past the Screen suggests methods of historical research, and it encourages further thought about the modes of inquiry that structure the discipline of film studies. Contributors. Mark Lynn Anderson, Janet Bergstrom, Richard deCordova, Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, Sumiko Higashi, Jon Lewis, David M. Lugowski, Dana Polan, Eric Schaefer, Andrea Slane, Eric Smoodin, Shelley Stamp

On release in the 1930s, Snow White became a milestone in animated film, Disney production and the US box office. Today its fans cross generations and continents, proving that this tale of the loveable, banished princess and her seven outstanding friends possesses a special magic that makes it both an all-time Disney great and a true film classic.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Going to the Movies in the City of Light, 1930-1950

In this innovative historical examination of the American movie audience, Eric Smoodin focuses on reactions to the films of Frank Capra. Best known for his Hollywood features—including It Happened One Night, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington—Capra also directed educational films, military films, and documentaries. Based on his analysis of the reception of a broad range of Capra’s films, Smoodin considers the preferences and attitudes toward Hollywood of the people who watched movies during the “Golden Age” of studio production, from 1930 to 1960. Drawing on archival sources including fan letters, exhibitor reports, military and prison records, government and corporate documents, and trade journals, Smoodin explains how the venues where Capra’s films were seen and the strategies used to promote the films affected audience response and how, in turn, audience response shaped film production. He analyzes issues of foreign censorship and government intervention in the making of The Bitter Tea of General Yen; the response of high school students to It Happened One Night; fan engagement with the overtly political discourse of Meet John Doe and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; San Quentin prisoners’ reaction to a special screening of It’s a Wonderful Life; and at&t’s involvement in Capra’s later documentary work for the Bell Science Series. He also looks at the reception of Capra’s series Why We Fight, used by the American military to train recruits and re-educate German prisoners of war. Illuminating the role of the famous director and his films in American culture, Regarding Frank Capra signals new directions for significant research on film reception and promotion.

Audience, Celebrity, and American Film Studies, 1930–1960

Regarding Frank Capra

In 1937, when Walt Disney released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the film became an immediate, international sensation. Years earlier, when Disney decided to produce Snow White, his first animated feature-length film, even he couldn't have imagined the hundreds of artists required, the cost involved, or the necessary technological innovations. But all of this effort resulted in a film experience like no other. Fans marvelled at the lush colour palette, the seemingly three-dimensional space, the operatic dependence on songs to tell the story, and the compelling characterisations. Snow White appealed to low and highbrow alike, from the teenagers who invented 'The Dopey Dance' to many of the great museums of the US, which proudly collected celluloid images from the film. Disney's Technicolor cartoon bridged apparent gaps between city and town, between age groups, between classes. Critics celebrated it as an instant classic. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs now stands as one of the most important of all Hollywood films, and its influence on movies – by Orson Welles, Michael Powell, and many others – extends to the present day. Based on extensive research in materials from the period of the film's production and distribution, Eric Smoodin's study presents a careful history of the events that led up to Snow White, the trajectory of Disney's career that made this extraordinary project a logical next step, the reception of the film in the US and around the world, and its impact on so many aspects of contemporary culture. This special edition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is published to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the BFI Film Classics series.

Hirohito and his Mickey Mouse watch, Goofy and Donald as our "Goodwill Ambassadors:" Disney Discourse is an interdisciplinary examination of the founder and his empire. These essays use an interdisciplinary approach to read through Disney's domestic cultural production "innocent" national icons, as well as theme parks, cartoons and television to analyze the global impact of American popular culture, the politics of Disney, and the complex reception Disney productions have received around the world. The Disney corporation's ever-increasing visibility the opening of Euro Disney and new stores in malls and vast influence over global culture demands critical attention not only in film and television studies, but in international diplomacy, architecture, economics and other related fields. Disney Discourse consolidates the best of the current work on Disney and provides a representative sample of past analyses of the Disney empire. Contributors: Julianne Burton-Carvajal, Lisa Cartwright, Brian Goldfarb, Richard deCordova, Douglas Gomery, David Kunzle, Jon Lewis, Moya Luckett, Richard Neupert, Susan Ohmer, José Piedra, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, Alexander Wilson.

Eric Smoodin

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