Indiana University Press
Main Street Movies: The History of Local Film in the United States
Key Metrics
- Martin L Johnson
- Indiana University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780253032522
- 9.02 X 5.98 X 0.75 inches
- 1.3 pounds
- Performing Arts > Film - History & Criticism
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
See yourself in the movies!
Prior to the advent of the home movie camera and the ubiquitousness of the camera phone, there was the local film. This cultural phenomenon, produced across the country from the 1890s to the 1950s, gave ordinary people a chance to be on the silver screen without leaving their hometowns. Through these movies, residents could see themselves in the same theaters where they saw major Hollywood motion pictures. Traveling filmmakers plied their trade in small towns and cities, where these films were received by locals as being part of the larger cinema experience. With access to the rare film clips under discussion, Main Street Movies documents the diversity and longevity of local film production and examines how itinerant filmmakers responded to industry changes to keep sponsors and audiences satisfied. From town pride films in the 1910s to Hollywood knockoffs in the 1930s, local films captured not just images of local people and places but also ideas about the function and meaning of cinema that continue to resonate today.
Author Bio
Martin L. Johnson is an assistant professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Main Street Movies: The History of Local Film in the United States (Indiana, 2018), and has published journal articles in Film History, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, Early Popular Visual Culture, and The Moving Image.
Research Interests
Aesthetics | American Literature to 1900 to the present | Critical Race Studies | Critical Theory and Cultural Studies | Digital Humanities | Feminist Historiography | Feminist Theory And Gender & Sexuality Studies | Film and Media Studies | Genre Theory | History of the Book | Media Studies | Performance Studies | Post-Colonial Literature and Theory | Posthumanism | Queer Theory | Visual Culture and Arts
Education
2012 Ph.D., New York University, Cinema Studies.
Dissertation title: “Main Street Movies: Local Films in the United States,1909-1934.”
Director: Dan Streible Committee: Jonathan Kahana, Anna McCarthy, Dana Polan, Robert C. Allen
2005 M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Folklore.
Thesis title: “‘See Yourself As Others See You’ in H. Lee Waters’s ‘Movies of Local People,’1936-1942.”
2001 A.B., Brown University, Modern Culture and Media, with honors.
Source: The University of North Caroline at Chapel Hill
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