The Cinema of Urban Crisis
Lawrence Webb
- Title
- The West in Early Cinema
- Subtitle
- After the Beginning
- ISBN
- 9789048509744
- Format
- eBook PDF
- Number of pages
- 464
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 12 - 01 - 2006
- Dimensions
- 16 x 24 cm
- Open Access
- Download on Open Access Platform
- Discipline
- Film, Media, and Communication
Contents - 8
Note - 10
After the Beginning
1. After-effects
Bits & Pieces
City Limits
Deconstructing the Other
Easterns
Facts and Fictions
Genre
2. Coincidences
History Lessons
Instant Nostalgia
Jeopardy
Kaleidoscopic Worlds
Landscapes
Modernities
3. Strategies
Narrativity
Old Timers
Picture Postcards
Questioning Categories
Riding theWilderness
Spectacle
Time Travel
4. Practices
Universal Ambition
Virtual Museums
WildWest Show
X-Rated
YoungWildWomen
Zooming In, Zapping, Zooming Out
List of illustrations
Filmography
Bibliography
Index
Reviews and Features
‘Verhoeff has produced one of the most original and imaginative works yet to be written on early cinema. Besides supplying a fascinating account of the almost totally neglected pre-history of the Western film genre, she offers a witty and insightful approach to the relation between the scholar and the archive and the nature of historical research.’
Tom Gunning, University of Chicago
The West in Early Cinema
After the Beginning
Verhoeff investigates the emergence of the western genre, made in the first two decades of cinema (1895-1915). By analyzing many unknown and forgotten films from international archives she traces the relationships between films about the American West, their surrounding films, and other popular media such as photography, painting, (pulp) literature, Wild West Shows and popular ethnography. Through this exploration of archival material she raises new questions of historiography and provides a model for historical analysis. These first traces of the Western film reveal a preoccupation with presence and actuality that informs us about the way in which film, as new medium, took shape within the context of its contemporary visual culture.
