RYAN J. FRIEDMAN is an associate professor of English and the director of film studies at Ohio State University in Columbus. He is the author of Hollywood's African American Films: The Transition to Sound (Rutgers University Press).

Klappentext

Throughout the silent-feature era, American artists and intellectuals routinely described cinema as a force of global communion, a universal language promoting mutual understanding and harmonious coexistence amongst disparate groups of people. This book examines the body of writing in which this understanding of cinema emerged and explores how it shaped particular silent films.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Motion Pictures and Modern Communion
1 Enlightened Public Opinion: Post-Reform Progressivism, Mental Science, and Gerald Stanley Lee's "Moving-Pictures"
2 "The Occult Elements of Motion and Light": Vachel Lindsay's Utopia of the Mirror Screen
3 "The Motion Picture Is War's Greatest Antidote": Rescue as Release of Force in D. W. Griffith's Intolerance
4 "Everything Wooed Everything": The Triumph of Morale Over Moralism in Rupert Hughes's Souls for Sale
5 "Little Grains of Sand": Positive Thinking and Corporate Form in Douglas Fairbanks's The Thief of Bagdad
Conclusion: Universal History and the Historicity of Film Entertainment
Notes
Index