Early American Cinema in Transition: Story, Style, and Filmmaking, 1907-1913

321 Pages·2002·16.774 MB·English

by  Charlie Keil

EARLY AMERICAN CINEMA
IN TRANSITION
_-11• •-
WISCONSIN
General Editors
David Bordwell. Vance Kepley. Jr.
studies In film Supervising Editor
Kristin Thompson
Film Essays and Criticism
Rudolf Amheim
Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies
Edited by David Bordwell and Noel Carroll
Reel Patriotism: The Movies
and World War I
Leslie Midkiff DeBauche
Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentation
in the United States
Douglas Gomery
lnvers of Cinema: The First American Film
Avant-Garde, 1919-1945
Edited by Jan-Christopher Horak
The Wages of Sin: Censorship and the
Fallen Woman Film, 1928-1942
Lea Jacobs
Settling the Score: Music and the Classical Hollywood Film
Kathryn Kalinak
Early American Cinema in Transition: Story, Style, and
Filmmaking, 1907-1913
Charlie Keil
Patterns of Time: Mizoguchi and the 1930s
Donald Kirihara
The World According to Hollywood, 1918-1939
Ruth Vasey
The Magic Mirror: Moviemaking in Russia, 1908-1918
Denise J. Youngblood
EARLY AMERICAN
CINEMA
IN TRANSITION
STORY, STYLE, AND
FILMMAKING, 1907-1913
Charlie Keil
The University of Wisconsin Press
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The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Keil, Charlie.
Early American cinema in transition:
story, style, and filmmaking, 1907-1913/ Charlie Keil.
320 pp. cm.-(Wisconsin studies in film)
Filmography: p.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-299-17360-7 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 0-299-17364-X (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Motion pictures-United States-History.
2. Motion picture industry-United States-History.
I. Title. II. Series.
PNI993.S.U6 K39 2001
791.43'0973'09041-dc21 2001003112
ISBN-13: 978-0-299-17364-7 (pbk.: alk. paper)
For Cathy

CONTENTS
Tables IX
Acknowledgments Xl
1 Introduction 3
2 "Boom Time in the Moving-Picture Business":
Industrial Structure, Production Practices, and
the Trade Press 20
3 "A Story Vital and Unified in Its Action":
The Demands of Narrative 45
4 "An Immeasurably Greater Freedom": Time and
Space in Transitional Cinema 83
5 ''The Modem Technique of the Art": The Style
of Transitional Cinema 125
6 Analyzing Transition: Six Sample Films 175
7 Conclusion 205
Appendix A: Notes on Method 217
Appendix B: Shot-by-Shot Analyses for Chapter 6 220
Notes 236
Filmography: Viewed Titles, 1907-1913 270
Works Cited 287
Film Index 296
General Index 301
VII

TABLES
3.1. Intertitle use, 1907-1913 62
5.1. Yearly comparison of average number of shots per
1,000-foot reel 173
5.2. Yearly comparison of highest number of shots per
1,000-foot reel 173
A.1. Sample devised by year and production company 218
IX