Silent Film and the Triumph of the American MythOxford University Press, 2001 M05 3 - 234 pages Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth connects the rise of film and the rise of America as a cultural center and twentieth-century world power. Silent film, Paula Cohen reveals, allowed America to sever its literary and linguistic ties to Europe and answer the call by nineteenth-century writers like Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman for an original form of expression compatible with American strengths and weaknesses. When film finally began to talk in 1927, the medium had already done its work. It had helped translate representation into a dynamic visual form and had "Americanized" the world. Cohen explores the way film emerged as an American medium through its synthesis of three basic elements: the body, the landscape, and the face. Nineteenth-century American culture had already charged these elements with meaning--the body through vaudeville and burlesque, landscape through landscape painting and moving panoramas, and the face through portrait photography. Integrating these popular forms, silent film also developed genres that showcased each of its basic elements: the body in comedy, the landscape in the western, and the face in melodrama. At the same time, it helped produce a new idea of character, embodied in the American movie star. Cohen's book offers a fascinating new perspective on American cultural history. It shows how nineteenth-century literature can be said to anticipate twentieth-century film--how Douglas Fairbanks was, in a sense, successor to Walt Whitman. And rather than condemning the culture of celebrity and consumption that early Hollywood helped inspire, the book highlights the creative and democratic features of the silent-film ethos. Just as notable, Cohen champions the concept of the "American myth" in the wake of recent attempts to discredit it. She maintains that American silent film helped consolidate and promote a myth of possibility and self-making that continues to dominate the public imagination and stands behind the best impulses of our contemporary world. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 90
Page 25
... social pariah who achieves moral stature through her unwillingness to explain her- self ; Twain's Huck Finn ends by throwing down his pen and heading for the territories where civilization - and language - will not impede his freedom ...
... social pariah who achieves moral stature through her unwillingness to explain her- self ; Twain's Huck Finn ends by throwing down his pen and heading for the territories where civilization - and language - will not impede his freedom ...
Page 26
... social machinations necessary to win her ; Isabel Archer , in The Portrait of a Lady , is marked as the novel's heroine by an idealism that allows her to be duped into a mercenary marriage ; and Adam Verver , the American millionaire ...
... social machinations necessary to win her ; Isabel Archer , in The Portrait of a Lady , is marked as the novel's heroine by an idealism that allows her to be duped into a mercenary marriage ; and Adam Verver , the American millionaire ...
Page 53
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 69
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 95
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Contents
22 | |
N | 44 |
T | 72 |
ILLY move in Get that face That | 108 |
Why I like my favorites? I like Joan Crawford | 132 |
In a film that which we hear remains | 162 |
ROWDS LINED THE STREETS and the rooftops as a magnificent | 178 |
NOTES | 183 |
FREDERICK LEWIS ALLEN | 189 |
VIVIAN GORNICK | 193 |
Aging | 196 |
ASHLEY MONTAGU | 199 |
JAMES OLIVER ROBERTSON | 202 |
BRUCE CATTON | 205 |
A Report on the New Feminism | 208 |
RUTH BENEDICT | 212 |
201 | |
211 | |
Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth | 228 |
E | 229 |
i | |
ii | |
Contents | v |
Preface | vii |
1 | 3 |
121 | 19 |
Immigrants Workers and Women 190033 | 29 |
131 | 36 |
4 | 51 |
15 | 65 |
161 | 83 |
171 | 97 |
181 | 115 |
191 | 130 |
10 | 141 |
11 | 156 |
12 | 173 |
13 | 189 |
14 | 207 |
15 | 223 |
16 | 241 |
17 | 257 |
18 | 273 |
19 | 291 |
Select Bibliography | 308 |
Appendix | 325 |
Appendix | 328 |
Index | 331 |
ii | |
Preface to the Sixth Edition | iii |
Preface to the First Edition | v |
A Note to the Student | ix |
Contents | xi |
What does the mind enjoy in books? Either the | xii |
Contents | xiii |
What does the mind enjoy in books? Either the | 2 |
In the broadest sense all writing is about yourself | 3 |
FRANÇOIS DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD | 10 |
Why I Went to the Woods | 17 |
JACK LONDON | 20 |
FLORIDA SCOTTMAXWELL | 28 |
ANNIE DILLARD | 31 |
RUSSELL BAKER | 39 |
The Character Sketch | 55 |
THEOPHRASTUS | 58 |
MORRIS BISHOP | 63 |
EDWARD C BANFIELD | 68 |
INGRID BENGIS | 72 |
JEAN RHYS | 76 |
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY | 77 |
ARNOLD BENNETT | 80 |
DENIS MACK SMITH | 84 |
Description | 95 |
Bubbles in the Ice | 98 |
The Congo | 102 |
REBECCA HARDING DAVIS | 106 |
TOM WOLFE | 114 |
WILLIAM STYRON | 120 |
WILLIAM GASS | 126 |
The Button Factory | 130 |
Narration | 135 |
JEREMY CAMPBELL | 137 |
ROBERT CARSE | 141 |
146 | 146 |
Crossing a River | 148 |
A Glimpse of Wars Hell Scenes | 153 |
JAMES THURBER | 157 |
Exposition | 169 |
BARBARA W TUCHMAN | 172 |
ROGER REVELLE | 173 |
Truth in the Mass Media | 177 |
ETHEL STRAINCHAMPS | 181 |
LOUIS B SALOMON | 184 |
STEPHEN LEACOCK | 216 |
NANNETTE VONNEGUT MENGEL | 219 |
ANAÏS NIN | 224 |
BERTRAND RUSSELL | 227 |
T E LAWRENCE | 230 |
MARVIN HARRIS | 235 |
CARL BECKER | 240 |
JOAN DIDION | 244 |
EDWARD GIBBON | 250 |
W E B DU BOIS | 256 |
Writing to Define | 261 |
LEO ROSTEN | 267 |
STUART BERG FLEXNER | 276 |
C C WYLIE | 280 |
E M FORSTER | 283 |
JEFFREY BURTON RUSSELL | 288 |
DWIGHT MACDONALD | 291 |
W H AUDEN | 297 |
Thus far we have been concerned with problems of explaining | 307 |
RALPH K ANDRIST | 314 |
FRANCIS BACON | 319 |
FRANCIS BACON | 321 |
JAMES AGATE | 324 |
DOROTHY L SAYERS | 329 |
ANNE ROIPHE | 334 |
JANE BRYANT QUINN | 343 |
KENNETH CLARK | 348 |
GEORGE F WILL | 355 |
LEWIS THOMAS | 360 |
ABRAHAM LINCOLN | 366 |
CARL SAGAN | 373 |
JAMES S TREFIL | 377 |
HARRY F HARLOW | 383 |
In Defense of Science | 389 |
PLATO | 394 |
JONATHAN SWIFT | 405 |
H L MENCKEN | 418 |
THUCYDIDES | 427 |
WILLIAM FAULKNER | 436 |
JOHN MCPHEE | 440 |
Beginnings and Closings | 457 |
From Education as Philosophy | 462 |
STEPHEN JAY GOULD | 466 |
RICHARD M MCMURRY | 470 |
D W BROGAN | 474 |
RACHEL CARSON | 481 |
Closings | 485 |
DYLAN THOMAS | 487 |
CARL SAGAN | 491 |
ELIZABETH JANEWAY | 495 |
EDITH HAMILTON | 498 |
Writing about Literature | 501 |
DONALD SPOTO | 503 |
ARTHUR ASA BERGER | 507 |
X J KENNEDY | 518 |
GUY DAVENPORT | 525 |
JOHN CIARDI | 531 |
MAYNARD MACK | 544 |
554 | 554 |
HELEN BEVINGTON | 566 |
FLANNERY OCONNOR | 571 |
G K CHESTERTON | 585 |
A Closer Look | 593 |
PIERRE CHAMPION | 601 |
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW | 606 |
THORSTEIN VEBLEN | 610 |
F L LUCAS | 615 |
VIRGINIA WOOLF | 619 |
From One Writers Beginnings | 625 |
MARK VAN DOREN | 632 |
D H LAWRENCE | 636 |
ERNEST HEMINGWAY | 641 |
WILLIAM GASS | 644 |
DYLAN THOMAS | 649 |
Glossary | 653 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
action administration African-Americans became beginning body campaign career cent character cities civil rights clause Clinton Cold War Communist Congress conservative Court culture D. W. Griffith Deal coalition Deal Order Democratic Party DICTION Douglas Fairbanks early economic effect Eisenhower election essay example Explain expression Fairbanks federal Franklin Roosevelt Griffith groups Houdini idea immigrants IMPROVING YOUR STYLE industrial Jimmy Carter Johnson Kennedy kind landscape liberal Lillian Gish live Look Lyndon Johnson major Mary Pickford means ment movement movie moving narrative Nixon organized labour paragraph phrase POINTS TO LEARN president presidential programmes progressive QUESTIONS READER racial READER AND PURPOSE Reagan Red Scare reform Republican Revision Richard Nixon role Roosevelt secure seemed sentence in lines silent film social society Soviet Union star SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING tion Truman twentieth century United vaudeville Vietnam vote voters White House Wilson women words workers York