The Silent Cinema Reader, edited by Lee Grieveson and Peter Kramer
At the Beginning: motion picture production, representation and ideology at the Edison and Lumiere companies by Charles Musser
Page 16, Points out constructed nature of barber and blacksmith scenes in early Edison (they were sets inside the studio)
Page 17, Blacksmith and drunk on job as nostalgia and ironic.
Edison failed in the iron ore business - effect outlined.
"Now you see it, now you don't": the temporality of the cinema of attractions by Tom Gunning
Page 41-42, early assumptions of primitive cinema: evolutionary (trying to become cinema), cinematic (discovering cinematic essence), and narrative.
Page 43, "narrative invokes the spectators interest by posing an enigma. The enigma demands a solution ... the art of narrative is delaying the resolution"
Page 44, "Attractions directly addresses the spectator, acknowledging the viewer's presence and seeking to quickly satisfy a curiosity"
Page 45, Role of magician on screen.
Page 49, "enthusiasm the early avant garde had for the aesthetic of attractions ... The gesture of display figured a time that seemed to escape from a linear or successive configuration of time. The potential shock of the cinema of attractions provided a popular form of an alternative temporality based not on the mimesis of memory or other psychological states but on an intense interaction between an astonished spectator and the cinematic smack of the instant, the flicker of presence and absence".
The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899), G.A.Smith and the emergence of the edited film in England by Frank Gray
Page 51, Albert Smith 1st edition of Narrative Sequences, re: not just editing to create trick "Kiss in the Tunnel" (11899) from background as a magic lantern slide presentation.
The Cinema of Attractions in France, 1896-1904 by Richard Abel
no notes
Moving Towards Fictional Narratives: story films become the dominant product, 1903-1904 by Charles Musser
Page 99, "The rapid adoption of the 3-blade shutter on projectors in late 1903-1904 made viewing more pleasurable" suggests part of rise of Nickelodeons and narrative film tied together with tech.
Pathe Goes to Town: French films create a market for the nickelodeon, 1903-1906 by Richard Abel
no notes
Manhattan Nickelodeons: new data on audiences and exhibitors by Ben Singer
no notes
From the Opium Den to the Theatre of Morality: moral discourse and the film process in early American cinema by Tom Gunning
Page 149, "The Biograph Company discontinued production of mutoscopes in 1909, a primary outlet for erotic films" [following censorship board forming]
Page 151, "The redeeming possibilities of motion pictures through the act of being a spectator"
Notes: evolution of narrative form and censorship and moralizing in silent films
How Many Times Shall Caesar Bleed in Sport: Shakespeare and the cultural debate about moving pictures by Roberta Pearson and William Uricchio
Fighting Films: race, morality , and the governing of cinema, 1912-1915 by Lee Grieveson
page 170, 1912 fight film transport law sidestepped by "the film was projected from the Canadian side of the border and recorded in the United States, across a border measuring just a few centimeters."
Page 175, Court decision in 1915 held that film was commerce, not protected under free speech ... "In effect ... motion pictures should avoid documenting ... real life issues and events ... moving pictures should be fictional, entertaining, harmless, and apolitical".
A Star is Born: American culture and the dynamics of Charlie Chaplin's star image, 1913-1916 by Charles J. Maland
Chaplin modification of his humour from vulgar to sympathetic due in part to critics.
An Awful Struggle Between Love and Ambition: serial heroines, serial stars and their female fans by Shelly Stamp
Page 212, with heroine's serials, "at the beginning of many serials, a heroine's seeming independance is conspicuously marked by the loss of a parent or guardian"
Page 213, "only by claiming their lineage or their inheritance can heroines free themselves from danger" RANIA
Traffic in Souls (1913): an experiment in feature-length narrative construction by Ben Brewster
Early feature "Traffic in Souls" made secretly at Independent Motion Pictures against wishes of head who didn't believe in features. It contains significant amount of parallel action and shorter shots and fewer titles.
Page 229, In 1911, most nickelodeons had only one projector and couldn't do reel changes.
Race, Melodrama, and the Birth of a Nation (1915) by Linda Williams
no notes
The International Exploration of Cinematic Expressivity by Kristin Thompson
In teens, clarity and expressivity in film narrative approach. Essay outlines methods expression improves including lingering on performances, with holding expressions, close up of expression/performance. AN
The Making of a Comic Star: Buster Keaton and The Saphead (1920) by Peter Kramer
Page 281, SLAP STICK "originally referring to two flat pieces of wood joined together at one end, used to produce a loud slapping noise creating the impression of someone having been dealt a hard blow on stage, the term 'slapstick' came to cover various forms of violent comedy"
Page 282, "Keaton's performance stood out both in those scenes where he engaged in traditional slapstick tumbling, that is an excess of activity, and in those where he acted straight, that is with an excess of restraint."
"The Perfect Lover"?: Valentino and ethnic masculinity in the 1920s by Gaylyn Studlar
"molly coddle" = man-woman, also included lounge lizards, cake eaters, boy flappers, tango pirates, flapperoosers.
Page 294, "Radway argues that in Harlequin romances, the male object of desire must undergo 'the imaginative transformation of masculinity to conform to female standards" ... this is accomplished by introduction a feature of softness that tempers the hero's hard masculinity".
The New Woman and Consumer Culture: Cecil B. Demille's sex comedies by Sumiko Higashi
Page 310, "a proliferation of mirror shots in DeMille's Jazz Age films attests to the increasing importance of style over substance"
The Open Door: Hollywood's public relations at home and abroad, 1922-1928 by Ruth Vasey
Page 323, from 1923 onward, Hollywood was shooting abroad as political move by MPPDA.
Page 324, Ethnic villains recast/rewritten as Russians in 1920s. "indeed, as villains, the Russians offered the rare combination of minority market status and recognizable national characteristics. ... In dollars and cents, Russian indignation was cheap".
Page 325, "The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism got short shrift when it complained aout the prejudicial treatment of atheism in The Godless Girl (DeMille, 1929)."
New Notes on Russian Film Culture Between 1908 and 1919 by Yuri Tsivian
Page 340, "in 1912 those film companies in Russia which had a market abroad .. supplementing their films with an export [happy] ending"
Page 342, "Happy End as a program, as Richard Abel has recently shown, began to crystallize around 1908 as part of the American film industry's effort to win its home market from Pathe"
Page 345, "Nie Goni Kartinu! (don't speed up the picture) - still exists in colloquial Russian, now meaning simply "not so fast". "
Early Alternatives to the Hollywood Mode of Production: implications for Europe's Avant-Gardes by Kristin Thompson
Page 356, [1926] German filmmakers provides a detailed sample budget for a feature film ... no expenditure for an editor.
Suggest primary unique qualities of Hollywood are the continuity script (established by 1914) and the job of editor separate from the director. Rob
Art and Industry: German Cinema of the 1920s by Joseph Grncarz
no notes
At the Beginning: motion picture production, representation and ideology at the Edison and Lumiere companies by Charles Musser
Page 16, Points out constructed nature of barber and blacksmith scenes in early Edison (they were sets inside the studio)
Page 17, Blacksmith and drunk on job as nostalgia and ironic.
Edison failed in the iron ore business - effect outlined.
"Now you see it, now you don't": the temporality of the cinema of attractions by Tom Gunning
Page 41-42, early assumptions of primitive cinema: evolutionary (trying to become cinema), cinematic (discovering cinematic essence), and narrative.
Page 43, "narrative invokes the spectators interest by posing an enigma. The enigma demands a solution ... the art of narrative is delaying the resolution"
Page 44, "Attractions directly addresses the spectator, acknowledging the viewer's presence and seeking to quickly satisfy a curiosity"
Page 45, Role of magician on screen.
Page 49, "enthusiasm the early avant garde had for the aesthetic of attractions ... The gesture of display figured a time that seemed to escape from a linear or successive configuration of time. The potential shock of the cinema of attractions provided a popular form of an alternative temporality based not on the mimesis of memory or other psychological states but on an intense interaction between an astonished spectator and the cinematic smack of the instant, the flicker of presence and absence".
The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899), G.A.Smith and the emergence of the edited film in England by Frank Gray
Page 51, Albert Smith 1st edition of Narrative Sequences, re: not just editing to create trick "Kiss in the Tunnel" (11899) from background as a magic lantern slide presentation.
The Cinema of Attractions in France, 1896-1904 by Richard Abel
no notes
Moving Towards Fictional Narratives: story films become the dominant product, 1903-1904 by Charles Musser
Page 99, "The rapid adoption of the 3-blade shutter on projectors in late 1903-1904 made viewing more pleasurable" suggests part of rise of Nickelodeons and narrative film tied together with tech.
Pathe Goes to Town: French films create a market for the nickelodeon, 1903-1906 by Richard Abel
no notes
Manhattan Nickelodeons: new data on audiences and exhibitors by Ben Singer
no notes
From the Opium Den to the Theatre of Morality: moral discourse and the film process in early American cinema by Tom Gunning
Page 149, "The Biograph Company discontinued production of mutoscopes in 1909, a primary outlet for erotic films" [following censorship board forming]
Page 151, "The redeeming possibilities of motion pictures through the act of being a spectator"
Notes: evolution of narrative form and censorship and moralizing in silent films
How Many Times Shall Caesar Bleed in Sport: Shakespeare and the cultural debate about moving pictures by Roberta Pearson and William Uricchio
Fighting Films: race, morality , and the governing of cinema, 1912-1915 by Lee Grieveson
page 170, 1912 fight film transport law sidestepped by "the film was projected from the Canadian side of the border and recorded in the United States, across a border measuring just a few centimeters."
Page 175, Court decision in 1915 held that film was commerce, not protected under free speech ... "In effect ... motion pictures should avoid documenting ... real life issues and events ... moving pictures should be fictional, entertaining, harmless, and apolitical".
A Star is Born: American culture and the dynamics of Charlie Chaplin's star image, 1913-1916 by Charles J. Maland
Chaplin modification of his humour from vulgar to sympathetic due in part to critics.
An Awful Struggle Between Love and Ambition: serial heroines, serial stars and their female fans by Shelly Stamp
Page 212, with heroine's serials, "at the beginning of many serials, a heroine's seeming independance is conspicuously marked by the loss of a parent or guardian"
Page 213, "only by claiming their lineage or their inheritance can heroines free themselves from danger" RANIA
Traffic in Souls (1913): an experiment in feature-length narrative construction by Ben Brewster
Early feature "Traffic in Souls" made secretly at Independent Motion Pictures against wishes of head who didn't believe in features. It contains significant amount of parallel action and shorter shots and fewer titles.
Page 229, In 1911, most nickelodeons had only one projector and couldn't do reel changes.
Race, Melodrama, and the Birth of a Nation (1915) by Linda Williams
no notes
The International Exploration of Cinematic Expressivity by Kristin Thompson
In teens, clarity and expressivity in film narrative approach. Essay outlines methods expression improves including lingering on performances, with holding expressions, close up of expression/performance. AN
The Making of a Comic Star: Buster Keaton and The Saphead (1920) by Peter Kramer
Page 281, SLAP STICK "originally referring to two flat pieces of wood joined together at one end, used to produce a loud slapping noise creating the impression of someone having been dealt a hard blow on stage, the term 'slapstick' came to cover various forms of violent comedy"
Page 282, "Keaton's performance stood out both in those scenes where he engaged in traditional slapstick tumbling, that is an excess of activity, and in those where he acted straight, that is with an excess of restraint."
"The Perfect Lover"?: Valentino and ethnic masculinity in the 1920s by Gaylyn Studlar
"molly coddle" = man-woman, also included lounge lizards, cake eaters, boy flappers, tango pirates, flapperoosers.
Page 294, "Radway argues that in Harlequin romances, the male object of desire must undergo 'the imaginative transformation of masculinity to conform to female standards" ... this is accomplished by introduction a feature of softness that tempers the hero's hard masculinity".
The New Woman and Consumer Culture: Cecil B. Demille's sex comedies by Sumiko Higashi
Page 310, "a proliferation of mirror shots in DeMille's Jazz Age films attests to the increasing importance of style over substance"
The Open Door: Hollywood's public relations at home and abroad, 1922-1928 by Ruth Vasey
Page 323, from 1923 onward, Hollywood was shooting abroad as political move by MPPDA.
Page 324, Ethnic villains recast/rewritten as Russians in 1920s. "indeed, as villains, the Russians offered the rare combination of minority market status and recognizable national characteristics. ... In dollars and cents, Russian indignation was cheap".
Page 325, "The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism got short shrift when it complained aout the prejudicial treatment of atheism in The Godless Girl (DeMille, 1929)."
New Notes on Russian Film Culture Between 1908 and 1919 by Yuri Tsivian
Page 340, "in 1912 those film companies in Russia which had a market abroad .. supplementing their films with an export [happy] ending"
Page 342, "Happy End as a program, as Richard Abel has recently shown, began to crystallize around 1908 as part of the American film industry's effort to win its home market from Pathe"
Page 345, "Nie Goni Kartinu! (don't speed up the picture) - still exists in colloquial Russian, now meaning simply "not so fast". "
Early Alternatives to the Hollywood Mode of Production: implications for Europe's Avant-Gardes by Kristin Thompson
Page 356, [1926] German filmmakers provides a detailed sample budget for a feature film ... no expenditure for an editor.
Suggest primary unique qualities of Hollywood are the continuity script (established by 1914) and the job of editor separate from the director. Rob
Art and Industry: German Cinema of the 1920s by Joseph Grncarz
no notes
