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The American Film History Reader
Edited by Jon Lewis and Eric Smoodin
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Book Presentation:
What do we talk or write about when we talk and write about American film history? The answer is predictably complex and elusive. The American Film History Reader acknowledges and accommodates this complex task by showcasing a range of historical writing demonstrating that when we talk or write about film history we, by necessity, talk and write about a lot of different things.
The American Film History Reader provides a selective history of American cinema and offers an introduction to historiographic practice in relation to American moviemaking and moviegoing.
The Reader is composed of eighteen essays organized into six thematic sections:
Industrial Practice Technology Reception Films and Filmmakers Censorship and Regulation Stardom
Appreciating that methods and materials change over time, this structure allows the editors to showcase a breadth of historiographic approaches and a range of research materials within each section. Each essay acts as a point of entry into a history that accounts for the essential and inherent commercial, experiential, social, and cultural aspects of the medium.
All eighteen essays are individually introduced by the editors, who provide additional context and suggestions for further reading, making it an ideal resource for students of film studies and particularly for students taking courses on film history.
About the authors:
Jon Lewis is professor of Film Studies at Oregon State University and the former editor of Cinema Journal. He has published nine books, including Whom God Wishes to Destroy … Francis Coppola and the New Hollywood and Hollywood v. Hard Core: How the Struggle over Censorship Saved the Modern Film Industry. Eric Smoodin is professor of American Studies at the University of California, Davis. Most recently, he is the author of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Regarding Frank Capra: Audience, Celebrity, and American Film Studies, 1930-1960.
Press Reviews:
"Lewis and Smoodin have assembled an absolutely essential reader for scholars and students of American film history. Structured around eighteen key essays, the book is far more than a survey of important films; it is, most importantly, a compelling reminder that any film history should reflect a spectrum of historiographic methods." Timothy Corrigan, Director of Cinema Studies, University of Pennsylvania
"Lewis and Smoodin - the scholarly equivalent of a star-powered Hollywood double-act - have brilliantly assembled a collection of essays that enable readers to examine both the history of American film and the changing historiographic practices that address that commercial art form. I can think of no better guides, and the book they have produced will rightly become integral to the ways we teach American film history."
Lee Grieveson, Director of the Graduate Programme in Film Studies, University College London
"As editors, [Smoodin and Lewis] have distinctly articulated their reasons for each and every article and do a thorough job of situating each selection in both its framework and the larger field of media historiography... If there are individuals who cling stubbornly to the notion that an Ivory Tower still exists in academia, Eric Smoodin and Jon Lewis are certainly not among them. The publication of The American Film History Reader is a testament to their belief that there has always been more than one film history to write, and more than one method to writing it."
Regina Longo, in Film Quarterly
See the publisher website: Routledge
> From the same authors:
Road Trip to Nowhere (2022)
Hollywood Encounters the Counterculture
by Jon Lewis
Subject: History of Cinema
Paris in the Dark (2020)
Going to the Movies in the City of Light, 1930–1950
by Eric Smoodin
Subject: General
When the Movies Mattered (2019)
The New Hollywood Revisited
Dir. Jonathan Kirshner and Jon Lewis
Subject: Countries > United States
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (2012)
by Eric Smoodin
Subject: One Film > Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Looking Past the Screen (2007)
Case Studies in American Film History and Method
Dir. Jon Lewis and Eric Smoodin
Subject: Countries > United States
Regarding Frank Capra (2005)
Audience, Celebrity, and American Film Studies, 1930-1960
by Eric Smoodin
Subject: Director > Frank Capra
Hollywood Quarterly (2002)
Film Culture in Postwar America, 1945-1957
Dir. Eric Smoodin and Ann Martin
Subject: On Films > Movie magazines
Whom God Wishes to Destroy . . . (1995)
Francis Coppola and the New Hollywood
by Jon Lewis
Subject: Director > Francis Ford Coppola
> On a related topic:
The Routledge Companion to American Film History (2025)
Dir. Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Paula J. Massood
Subject: History of Cinema
Girls Will Be Boys (2016)
Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema, 1908-1934
by Laura Horak
Subject: Sociology
The Sixties, 1960-1969 (2003)
History of American Cinema vol.8
by Paul Monaco
Subject: History of Cinema
The Fifties, Transforming the Screen 1950–1959 (2003)
History of Amarican cinema vol.7
by Peter Lev
Subject: History of Cinema
American Cinema and Hollywood (2000)
Critical Approaches
Dir. John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson
Subject: History of Cinema
Boom & Bust, American Cinema in the 1940s (1999)
History of American Cinema vol.6
Subject: History of Cinema
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