Beyond the Multiplex

Cinema, New Technologies, and the Home

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by Barbara Klinger

Type

Studies

Subject

Sociology

Keywords

home video, movie theater, viewer, technology

Publishing date

2006

Publisher

University of California Press

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 324 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN-10
ISBN-13

0-520-24586-5
978-0-520-24586-0

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Book Presentation:
Since the mid-eighties, more audiences have been watching Hollywood movies at home than at movie theaters, yet little is known about just how viewers experience film outside of the multiplex. This is the first full-length study of how contemporary entertainment technologies and media—from cable television and VHS to DVD and the Internet—shape our encounters with the movies and affect the aesthetic, cultural, and ideological definitions of cinema. Barbara Klinger explores topics such as home theater, film collecting, classic Hollywood movie reruns, repeat viewings, and Internet film parodies, providing a multifaceted view of the presentation and reception of films in U.S. households. Balancing industry history with theoretical and cultural analysis, she finds that today cinema's powerful social presence cannot be fully grasped without considering its prolific recycling in post-theatrical venues—especially the home.

Since the mid-eighties, more audiences have been watching Hollywood movies at home than at movie theaters, yet little is known about just how viewers experience film outside of the multiplex. This is the first full-length study of how contemporary enterta

About the Author:
Barbara Klinger, Associate Professor of Communication and Culture and Director of Film and Media at Indiana University, is author of Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk (1994).

Press Reviews:
“Beyond the Multiplex is a well-organized, even-keeled, and lucid account of the home as an exhibition space that encourages particular film cultures, each of which contributes to and activates differently the meaning of film texts.”— Canadian Journal Of Film Stds“Thorough historical approach and lucid prose makes this book a landmark text for cinema and new media studies. . . . A detailed, yet highly accessible account of the recent history of home film culture.”— Afterimage"Barbara Klinger provides a detailed and insightful glimpse into the major place we watch movies today: the home! Connecting discourses, technologies, and consumer behavior, she writes a superb examination of the places, means, and drive for personal control of our visual and aural pleasures, changing our gaze from the multiplex screen to our own living spaces. A crucial contribution to contemporary studies in film, television, and new media! "—Janet Staiger, author of Media Reception Studies

See the publisher website: University of California Press