Richard Abel's book aims to radically rewrite the history of French cinema between 1896 and 1914, particularly during the years when Pathe-Freres, the first major corporation in the new industry, led the world in film production and distribution. Based on extensive investigation of rare archival films and documents, and drawing on recent social and cultural histories of turn-of-the-century France and the United States, his book provides insights into the earliest history of the cinema. Abel tells how early French film entertainment changed from a cinema of attractions to the narrative format that Hollywood would so successfully exploit. He describes the popular genres of the era - comic chases, trick films and "feeries", historical and biblical stories, family melodramas and grand guignol tales, crime and detective films - and shows the shift from short subjects to feature-length films. Cinema venues evolved along with the films as live music, colour effects and other exhibiting techniques and practices drew larger and larger audiences.
Abel explores the ways these early films mapped significant differences in French social life, helping to produce thoroughly bourgeois, turn-of-the-century citizens for Third Republic France.
- ISBN10 0585176337
- ISBN13 9780585176338
- Publish Date December 1998 (first published 30 March 1994)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of California Press
- Edition Updated and expanded e.
- Format eBook
- Language English