Going to the Movies

Hollywood and the Social Experience of Cinema

Contributions by Richard Abel, Charles R. Acland, Charles Ambler, Daniel Biltereyst, Richard Butsch, Thomas Doherty, Jane M. Gaines, Mark Glancy, Ahmet Gürata, Mark Jancovich, Barbara Kilinger, Jeffery Klenotic, Annette Kuhn, Terry Lindvall, Christopher J. McKenna, Anne Morey, John Sedgwick, Judith Thissen, Gregory A. Waller, Haidee Wasson Edited by Prof. Richard Maltby, Dr. Melvyn Stokes, Robert C. Allen

Publication date:

14 December 2007

Publisher

University of Exeter Press

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780859898119

This book analyses the diverse historical and geographical circumstances in which audiences have viewed American cinema. It looks at cinema audiences ranging from Manhattan nickelodeons to the modern suburban megaplex, and from provincial, small-town or rural America to the shanty towns of South Africa.

Going to the Movies studies the social and cultural history of movie audiences. Ranging broadly across historical time and geographical place, it analyses the role of movie theatres in local communities, the links between film and other entertainment media, non-theatrical exhibition and trends arising from the globalisation of audiences. There is an emphasis on movie-going outside the American North-East, and several chapters analyse the complexities of race and race formation in relation to cinema attendance.

Introduction, Richard Maltby and Melvyn Stokes

Part 1: Studies of Local Cinema Exhibition

1. Race, Religion, and Rusticity: Relocating U. S. Film History, Robert C. Allen

2. Tri-racial Theaters in Robeson County, North Carolina (1896-1940), Christopher J. McKenna

3. The White in the Race Movie Audience, Jane Gaines

4. Sundays in Norfolk: Toward a Protestant Utopia Through Film Exhibition in Norfolk, Virginia, 1910-1920, Terry Lindvall, C. S. Lewis

5. Patchwork Maps of Movie-Going, 1911-1913, Richard Abel, Robert Altman

6. Leshono habo' bimuving piktshurs (Next year at the Moving Pictures): Cinema and social change in the Jewish immigrant community, Judith Thissen

7. 'Four Hours of Hootin' and Hollerin": Moviegoing and Everyday Life Outside the Movie Palace, Jeffrey Klenotic

8. Cinema-going in the United States in the mid-1930s: A Study Based on the Variety Dataset, Mark Glancy and John Sedgwick

9. Race Houses, Jim Crow Roosts, and Lily White Palaces: desegregating the Motion Picture Theater, Thomas Doherty

Part II: Other Cinema: Alternatives to Theatrical Exhibition

10. The Reel of the Month Club: 16mm Projectors, Home Theaters and Film Libraries in the 19320s, Haidee Wasson

11. Early Art Cinema in the U.S.: Symon Gould and the Little Cinema Movement of the 1920s, Anne Morey

12. Free Talking Picture - Every Farmer is Welcome: Non-theatrical Film and Everyday Life in Rural America during the 1930s, Gregory A. Waller

13. Cinema's Shadow: Reconsidering Non-Theatrical Exhibition, Barbara Klinger

Part III: Hollywood Movies in Broader Perspective: Audiences at Home and Abroad

14. Changing Images of Movie Audiences, Richard Butsch

15. 'Healthy Films from America': The emergence of a Catholic film mass movement in Belgium and the realm of Hollywood, 1928-1939, Daniel Biltereyst

16. The child audience and the 'horrific' film in 1930s Britain, Annette Kuhn

17. Hollywood in Vernacular: Translation and Cross-Cultural Reception of American Films in Turkey, Ahmet Gurata

18. Cowboy Modern: African Audiences, Hollywood Films, and Visions of the West, Charles Ambler

19. 'Opening Everywhere': Multiplexes and the Speed of Cinema Culture, Charles R. Acland

20. 'Cinema Comes to Life at the Cornerhouse, Nottingham': 'American' Exhibition, Local Politics and Global Culture in the Construction of the Urban Entertainment Centre, Mark Jancovich

‘Going to the Movies provides a fascinating range of consistently well-written chapters by a good selection of the best film historians on both sides of the Atlantic. With 68 pages of detailed references and an excellent index, this book is highly recommended for film research libraries and those with a serious interest in historical movie-going studies.’ (Media International Australia, No. 129, November 2008)

‘this excellent collection’ (Stuart Hanson, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2011)