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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 highlightsthe 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.
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 highlightsthe 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.
Introduction
1: Literary Antecedents of American Silent Film
2: Houdini, Keaton, and the Rise of the Body
3: Hart, Fairbanks, and the Vitalization of Landscape
4: Griffith, Gish, and the Narrative of the Face
5: The Birth of the Star System and the Shaping of the Modern
Self
6: The Transition to Sound
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Paula Marantz Cohen is Professor of Humanities and Director of the Literature Program at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Her books include Alfred Hitchcock: The Legacy of Victorianism and The Daughter's Dilemma: Family Process and the Nineteenth-Century Domestic Novel.
"Much of [Cohen's] stimulating book deals with a conjunction in
American history, the arrival of film around 1900 just at the right
time for a vibrant national mythology to find its perfect
medium.... [She] posits a strong case for a marriage made in
historical heaven between this mythology and film."--Stanley
Kauffmann, The New Republic
"Why as American pop culture become so dominant? One intriguing
[explanation] is given [here.] Cohen...shows that the development
of the silent film 'sustained the American myth and sold it to the
world.'"--Edward Rothstein, New York Times
"Cohen's seamless integration of seemingly disparate facts is
refreshing and convincing.... A thoughtful, engaging [exploration]
of the American myth of self-creation."--Library Journal
"Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth is the most
accessible account I know of the aesthetic and historical
ramifications of this most remarkable of art forms. Beautifully
written and imaginatively conceived, it provides a powerful
introduction to the form for those who have never thought seriously
about silent films and offers a splendid evocation of their power
for those who already know and love them."--Jonathan Freedman,
coeditor of
Hitchcock's America
"Much of [Cohen's] stimulating book deals with a conjunction in
American history, the arrival of film around 1900 just at the right
time for a vibrant national mythology to find its perfect
medium.... [She] posits a strong case for a marriage made in
historical heaven between this mythology and film."--Stanley
Kauffmann, The New Republic
"Why has American pop culture become so dominant? One intriguing
[explanation] is given [here.] Cohen...shows that the development
of the silent film 'sustained the American myth and sold it to the
world.'"--Edward Rothstein, The New York Times
"Cohen's seamless integration of seemingly disparate facts is
refreshing and convincing.... A thoughtful, engaging [exploration]
of the American myth of self-creation."--Library Journal
"Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth is the most
accessible account I know of the aesthetic and historical
ramifications of this most remarkable of art forms. Beautifully
written and imaginatively conceived, it provides a powerful
introduction to the form for those who have never thought seriously
about silent films and offers a splendid evocation of their power
for those who already know and love them."--Jonathan Freedman,
coeditor of
Hitchcock's America
"[Cohen] sheds light on the stunning, rapid success of American
films throughout the world in the silent era, and helps explain the
remarkable popularity and influence of American movie stars... This
work will engage and intrigue those already familiar with the
genre, whether fans or scholars."--The Philadelphia Inquirer
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