Jon Lewis / Eric SmoodinLooking Past the Screen
Case Studies in American Film History and Method
Herausgeber: Lewis, Jon; Smoodin, Eric
Jon Lewis is a professor in the English department at Oregon State University. His books include Hollywood v. Hard-Core: How the Struggle over Censorship Saved the Modern Film Industry as well as Whom God Wishes to Destroy: Francis Ford Coppola and the New Hollywood and The New American Cinema, both also published by Duke University Press. Eric Smoodin is a professor of American studies and director of film studies at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of Regarding Frank Capra: Audience, Celebrity, and American Film Studies, 1930–1960, also published by Duke University Press, and Animating Culture: Hollywood Cartoons from the Sound Era.
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The History of Film History / Eric Smoodin 1
I. Institutional Histories 35
The Beginning of American Film Study / Dana Polan 37
The Perfect Money Machine(s): George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Auteurism
in the New Hollywood / Jon Lewis 61
II. Star Studies 87
Lois Weber and the Celebrity of Matronly Respectability / Shelley Stamp 89
Tempting Fate: Clara Smith Hamon, or, The Secretary as Producer / Mark Lynn
Anderson 117
The Crafting of a Political Icon: Lola Lola on Paper / Andrea Slane 151
III. Regulation 167
Going Hollywood Sooner or Later: Chinese Censorship and The Bitter Tea of
General Yen / Eric Smoodin 169
Plain Brown Wrapper: Adult Films for the Home Market, 1930-1969 / Eric
Schaefer 201
IV. Reception 227
Ethnography and Exhibition: The Child Audience, The Hays Office, and
Saturday Matinees / Richard deCordova 229
Dish Night at the Movies: Exhibitor Promotions and Female Audiences during
the Great Depression / Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley 246
“A Treatise on Decay”: Liberal and Leftist Critics and Their Queer Readings
of Depression-Era U.S. Film / David M. Lugowski 276
V. Production 301
Murnau in America: Chronicle of Lost Films (4 Devils, City Girl) / Janet
Bergstrom 303
The American Origins of Film Noir: Realism in Urban Art and The Naked City
/ Sumiko Higashi 353
Bibliography 381
Contributors 397
Index 401
