A SHORT HISTORY of FILM 00 Dixon FM I-Xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page Ii 00 Dixon FM I-Xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page Iii
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page i A SHORT HISTORY OF FILM 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page ii 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page iii FILMA SHORT HISTORY OF WHEELER WINSTON DIXON & GWENDOLYN AUDREY FOSTER rutgers university press new brunswick, new jersey 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page iv Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dixon, Wheeler W., 1950– A short history of film / Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0-8135–4269–0 (hardcover : alk. paper)—ISBN 978–0-8135–4270–6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures—History. 2. Motion picture industry—History. I. Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey. II. Title. PN1993.5.A1D53 2008 791.43Ј7—dc22 2007022097 Copyright © 2008 by Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or me- chanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854–8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Visit our Web site: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Manufactured in the United States of America 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page v To the filmmakers, historians, and critics of the twenty-first century 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page vi 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page vii CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Timeline 1832–2007 xi one The Invention of the Movies 1 two The Birth of an American Industry 22 three World Cinema: The Silent Era 53 four The Hollywood Studio System in the 1930s and 1940s 89 five International Cinema through World War II 137 six Postwar Challenges to the Movies 168 seven World Cinema in the 1950s 203 eight The 1960s Explosion 239 nine World Cinema 1970 to the Present 302 ten The New Hollywood 351 Glossary of Film Terms 385 Bibliography 389 Index 411 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page viii 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Our first thanks go to Leslie Mitchner of Rutgers University Press for com- missioning this volume and believing in it from the outset. We also give our deepest thanks to Dana Miller for a superb typing job; to Jerry Ohlinger for the many stills that grace this volume; to Michael Andersen for his assistance with the bibliography; to Dennis Coleman for help in research; to Virginia Clark for tirelessly checking facts and copyediting the first draft; to Eric Schramm for an excellent job of copyediting subsequent drafts; and to David Sterritt for a thorough and meticulous reading of the final text. We would also like to thank our many colleagues in the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and our chair, Joy Ritchie, for help and support in creating this work. For their many invaluable insights, we would like to thank our friends and companions over the years, too nu- merous to mention here, who first saw these films with us; the discussions we have had with our colleagues in film studies at other universities are surely reflected in this text as well. Finally, we thank the University of Ne- braska Research Council for a Maude Hammond Fling Research Fellowship that aided us considerably in the completion of this book. We wish to note that the material incorporated in this text on Dorothy Arzner, Jean Cocteau, Danièle Huillet, Jean Renoir, and Jean-Marie Straub, written by Wheeler Winston Dixon, originally appeared in The Encyclopedia of Film, edited by James Monaco and James Pallot (New York: Perigee/Put- nam, 1991), provided by Baseline StudioSystems. The material on Chantal Akerman, Dorothy Arzner, Jacqueline Audry, Joy Batchelor, Kathryn Bigelow, Muriel Box, Vera Chytilová, Julie Dash, and Doris Dörrie, written by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, from Women Film Directors: An International Bio-Critical Dictionary, is reproduced with permission of Greenwood Pub- lishing Group, Westport, Connecticut. This material has been significantly revised for its inclusion here. 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page x 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page xi TIMELINE 1832 The Phenakistoscope, a spinning wheel with an image at its center that seems to move, is invented by Joseph Plateau in Belgium. 1834 William Horner refines Plateau’s Phenakistoscope into the Zoetrope. 1872 Edweard Muybridge shoots his famous series of still images of a horse in motion to settle a bet; when viewed in sequence, the stills form a primitive movie. 1873 Alice Guy, the first woman film director, is born in France. 1880 China and the United States sign a trade and immigration treaty. 1881 U.S. President James Garfield is assassinated. Fyodor Dostoevsky dies. Czar Alexander II of Russia is assassinated. 1882 Étienne-Jules Marey invents his “shotgun” camera. Britain invades Egypt. Birth of director Lois Weber. 1883 The French Impressionist painter Edouard Manet dies. The Brooklyn Bridge opens. The birth of the U.S. Navy, with the construction of three battleships. 1884 Belgium opens the Congo to free trade, under the colonial rule of King Leopold. Birth of African American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. 1885 Germany colonizes Tanzania and Togoland. 1886 British film pioneer William Friese-Greene begins work on a motion picture camera and projector. 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page xii timeline: 1832–2006 1887 War breaks out between Ethiopia and Italy. President Grover Cleveland signs the Interstate Commerce Act, regu- lating railroads. Celluloid nitrate film is invented. 1888 Inventor Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince shoots a short film of traffic on a bridge in Leeds, England; the film is probably the first movie ever shot and then shown to the public. George Eastman produces the first lightweight camera and trade- marks the Kodak name. Anita Loos, American screenwriter, is born. 1889 The Oklahoma Land Rush. The Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania kills 2,000 people when a dam bursts. George Eastman manufactures celluloid roll film. 1890 William Kennedy Laurie Dickson builds the first modern movie camera, the Kinetograph, under instructions from Thomas Alva Edison. 1893 Mary Pickford, silent screen star, is born. 1894 Thomas Edison shoots Fred Ott’s Sneeze in his Black Maria. The first Kinetoscope parlor opens in New York. 1895 Auguste and Louis Lumière hold the first public screening of their films. 1896 Alice Guy directs her first film, The Cabbage Patch Fairy. Thomas Edison shoots The Kiss, the first kiss in screen history. 1898 Alice Guy shoots primitive sound films in France using the Chrono- phone process. The first films are shot in Japan. 1900 Max Planck formulates quantum theory. Kodak introduces the Brownie camera. The Boxer Rebellion in China. Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams. The hamburger is invented. xii 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page xiii timeline: 1832–2006 1901 Queen Victoria dies. The first transatlantic radio signal. Walt Disney is born. The first Nobel Prizes are awarded. U.S. President William McKinley is assassinated; Theodore Roosevelt becomes president. 1902 Director William Wyler is born. Mount Pelée erupts in Martinique. The Boer War ends. The teddy bear is introduced, in homage to Theodore Roosevelt. Georges Méliès has a hit with his special effects extravaganza A Trip to the Moon. 1903 The Wright brothers make their first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The ice cream cone is patented. Plague strikes India. The first World Series is played. The Great Train Robbery is filmed by director Edwin S. Porter. U.S. film production is centered in New York and New Jersey. 1904 The Russo-Japanese War begins. The milkshake mixer is invented. Construction starts on the Panama Canal. The Trans-Siberian Railway is completed. The New York City subway opens. 1905 Actress Greta Garbo is born. First U.S. pizza parlor opens. Einstein proposes the Special Theory of Relativity. “Bloody Sunday” in the Russian Revolution of 1905. Cecil Hepworth produces and directs Rescued by Rover in England. xiii 00 Dixon FM i-xxxviii 1/15/08 9:26 AM Page xiv timeline: 1832–2006 1906 Upton Sinclair writes The Jungle, exposing conditions in meatpacking plants. San Francisco earthquake occurs. The Biograph Film Studio opens in New York. Edwin S. Porter directs the trick fantasy film Dream of a Rarebit Fiend. Elvira Notari, Italy’s first woman director, begins making films. 1907 Pablo Picasso introduces Cubism. First electric washing machine. Rules of war established at the Second Hague Peace Conference. Edwin S. Porter directs Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest, starring future director D. W. Griffith. 1908 There are more than 8,000 nickelodeon movie theaters nationwide in the United States. Ford introduces the Model-T automobile, in “any color you want, so long as it’s black.” Earthquake in Italy kills 150,000. Thomas Edison forms “The Trust” to monopolize motion pictures. D. W. Griffith directs his first one-reel film, The Adventures of Dollie. 1909 The NAACP is founded. Japan’s Prince Ito is assassinated. Plastic is invented. There are 9,000 movie theaters in the United States. 35 mm becomes the internationally recognized theatrical film gauge. 1910 The Boy Scouts are established in the United States. Thomas Edison presents his own sound film process, the Kineto- phone.