Before Hollywood: Turn-Of-The-Century American Film

by John L. Fell (Contributor)

Describes early films shot in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and looks at how these early motion pictures reflected contemporary values

Genres: Film

172 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1987

Reviews

[Greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically an exhibition catalog for a traveling film program on early cinema. Aside from the writeups of the individual films, it also has excellent essays by well known names like Leyda, Koszarski, Musser, Merritt, Mayne, etc, on topic such as exhibition, narrative, actors, women, dreams, cinematography, etc. But what struck me in reading descriptions of how strange early film looked from the vantage point of 1987 was how dated 1987 now looks. With ubiquitous cameras and the web, now audiences are again seeing short films made by nonprofessionals, largely consisting of casual incidents or scenics, with some attempts at narrative among the more ambitious. Perhaps to modern audiences, early film might not look so strange after all.