An Iconographical and Iconological Analysis
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New York City in Early Films: An Iconographical and Iconological Analysis Submitted by Edward John Falvey to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film December 2017 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. 1 Acknowledgements I would like to take the opportunity to state that I am extremely grateful to a large number of people without whom it would not have been possible to complete this work. Firstly, I owe a great debt to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for taking a chance on me and funding my PhD research. I would also like to extend a special thanks to the Library of Congress and, in particular, the staff and fellows of the John W. Kluge Centre for hosting me for six months in 2015 and providing their support and friendship throughout my time there. I am very thankful to the University of Exeter’s Department of English and Film who has supported this work throughout. I would like to recognise the support of my supervisor, Joe Kember, who has remained patient, generous, and inspiring as this project has continued to change and develop since it began in 2013. I would not have been able to complete this work without his wisdom and guidance and, for that, I owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. I would also like to thank James Lyons whose feedback and support has been instrumental to the development of this project. Also, to Helen Hanson and Fiona Handyside, who presided over a sample of my work, I express my thanks for their comments which significantly shaped it at a crucial stage. I am enormously grateful to Joe Hickinbottom who has devoted his time to read every page of this thesis. His patience, friendship, and sound advice has been indispensable and my completed thesis owes an awful lot to him. I would like to thank my friends old and new, colleagues, and extended family, all of whom have provided the support and humour that I have needed on the darkest of days. Special thanks go to these who continue to support and inspire me and have made this, at times, tough process all the more bearable. 2 Words cannot adequately express the love and gratitude that I have for my family. I thank my mum, Jane, for being a pillar of strength throughout; her support, friendship, and love has sustained me at the hardest of times. I thank my dad, Martin, whose sound judgement, resolute guidance, and loving support has been crucial since the very beginning. I thank my brother, Henry, for his intelligence on the subject of film, for keeping me grounded in my responses to it, and for making me laugh when I needed it most. I thank my sister, Georgina, for her wit, wisdom, and abiding courage; throughout the most difficult of times she has remained a creative, bright, and sassy beacon of inspiration (who would call me remiss if I did not thank the animals as well). I would like take the opportunity to thank my grandfather, John, for his aid and encouragement throughout this process which I am deeply grateful for. Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my grandmothers, Helen and Jane, who did not get to see it completed, but who I know would be deeply proud to see that it is finally done. 3 Abstract Accounts of early film have more often than not tended to observe the period less in regards to the films produced and more in a way that privileges formal developments, modes of exhibition, and audiences as the primary subjects of their investigations. This thesis aims to restore a critical interest in the films themselves as complex vessles of protean cultural meaning by placing them, and the city they capture, at the epicentre of a network of images and ideas concerning modern life. This thesis employs the early films of New York as a means of evaluating the multifaceted and multifarious ways in which modernity was impacting upon the city during the period of film’s cultural ascension. By surveying a large corpus of films with an oft-neglected method, this thesis finds that many of the films capture aspects of the radically transforming city in their iconography in ways which foreground modernity’s considerable impact upon the city and, contingently, modern life. This thesis applies an extensive iconographical- iconological method to the early films of New York to assess the ways in which the emerging medium enshrined the architectural, technological, and social transformations that the city fostered in light of modernity. This thesis consists of three large chapters that focus firstly on modernity’s impression on New York during the period mostly associated with actuality filmmaking, secondly on the city’s diverse social transformations that were articulated in early fiction filmmaking, and finally on the ways in which Coney Island on film embodies many of the principle ideas discussed throughout the preceding chapters. The research carried out over the course of this thesis demonstrates the ways in which the city was positioned as a primary subject of early New York film and anticipates the ways in which the city would come to figure as a primary structuring principle for filmmaking throughout the century. 4 New York City in Early Films: An Iconographical and Iconological Analysis Table of contents Acknowledgements…………………………..…………………………………………......2 Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………….4 Table of contents…………………………………………………………………………….5 List of figures…………………………………………………………………………………6 Abbreviations………………………………………………………………………………...9 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..10 Chapter One: From an Iconographical to an Iconological Reading of the Physical City on Early Film………………………………………………………………………....52 Chapter Two: From an Iconographical to an Iconological Reading of the Social City on Early Film….…………………………………………………………………….123 Chapter Three: From an Iconographical to an Iconological Reading of Coney Island on Early Film…………………………………………………………………….217 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….…266 Appendix: A Representative Survey of New York Films (1896-c.1912)...................276 Filmography.............................................................................................................312 Bibliography.............................................................................................................337 5 List of Figures Figure 1 – A shot from Fifth Avenue, New York (Edison, 1897) ............................... 28 Figure 2 – Four shots from 104th Street Curve, New York, Elevated Railway (Edison, 1899) ........................................................................................................................ 62 Figure 3 – Four shots from New Brooklyn to New York via Brooklyn Bridge (Edison, 1899) ........................................................................................................................ 67 Figure 4 – Two shots from Across the Subway Viaduct (AMB, 1905) ...................... 71 Figure 5 – Two shots of Brooklyn Bridge from Seeing New York by Yacht (AMB, 1903) and Panorama Waterfront and Brooklyn Bridge from the East River (Edison, 1903). ................................................................................................................................. 77 Figure 6 – A shot from Panorama from the Tower of Brooklyn Bridge (AMB, 1903) 78 Figure 7 – A shot from Herald Square (Edison, 1896).............................................. 82 Figure 8 – A shot from Lower Broadway (AMB, 1903) ............................................. 92 Figure 9 – A shot from New York City “ghetto” Fish Market (Edison, 1903) ............. 95 Figure 10 – 'Lower New York skyline, showing Manhattan Life, Standard Oil, Produce Exchange, Washington, Bowling Green, and other great buildings' (1904) by William Herman Rau ............................................................................................................. 98 Figure 11 – Edward J. Steichen’s ‘The Flatiron – Evening’ (1904) and Alfred Stieglitz’s ‘The City of Ambition’ (1910) .................................................................................. 101 Figure 12 – Alfred Stiglitz's ‘Old and New New York’ (1910) .................................. 104 Figure 13 – Two shots from Star Theatre (AMB, 1902) and Excavation for a New York Foundation (AMB, 1903). ....................................................................................... 105 Figure 14 – Two shots of the skyline from New York City Harbor (Edison, 1907) and New York City Scenes (George Kleine, c.1900). .................................................... 109 6 Figure 15 – Two shots from Skyscrapers of New York from the North River (Edison, 1903) ...................................................................................................................... 111 Figure 16 – Four shots from Panorama from Times Building, New York (AMB, 1905) ............................................................................................................................... 113 Figure 17 – Alfred Stieglitz’s ‘The Flatiron’ (c. 1903) and shot from Panorama of Flatiron Building (AMB, 1903). ............................................................................... 114 Figure 18 – Four shots from The