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FILM CULTURE IN TRANSITION THE WEST IN EARLY CINEMA AFTER THE BEGINNING NANNA VERHOEFF Amsterdam University Press The West in Early Cinema The West in Early Cinema After the Beginning Nanna Verhoeff Cover illustration: Gertrude McCoy, Motography VII, (June ): Cover design: Kok Korpershoek, Amsterdam Lay-out: japes, Amsterdam isbn x (paperback) isbn (hardcover) nur © Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. “Motion Pictures” The experiments, the failures and the successes of the past twelve years have been stepping stones which have led to the production of the modern masterpieces in motography. The evolution of the pictures play began in , when an amazed public marveled at the seeming witchcraft which reproduced upon a sheet living and moving people, animals, and scenes. […] Today it is the subject that interests, not the novelty of the invention. Complete plays are enacted upon the curtain with specially written music that sometimes ranks with the classics. Reliable statistics show that , millions of admissions to motion picture theaters are sold to the people of the United States annually. Who can estimate the enormous power for good of this post modern factor in the entertainment and education of the masses? The library of the future will contain a file of motion picture films to demonstrate, better than books, the life of a people, their political, social and economic status. “Motion Pictures.” The Sun (February , ) “What Next?” As for the future of this remarkable business, with its Alladdin-like growth, it is impossible to predict. Growing at first from simple pictures which moved naturally and without dramatic possibility, it reached the pictures of constructed movement. Then came pictures more rapidly moving, but always outside pictures. Then came that baneful fashion of the chase, upon which followed the little drama’s in little studios – dramas which ran to from to feet of film, and which possessed all the earmarks of blood and thunder. Now we have come to the film of eighteen to twenty minutes, to the period of the constructed play, to the period almost of epigram in subtitles. The cowboy is waning by the side of a declining Indian maid, to be succeeded by – ? Can anybody tell the picture men? – “Quick Fashion Changes: Public Demands New Subjects Constantly.” New York Times (August , ) The train robbery film seemed to prove pretty conclusively that in the balmy days when it was made, jerkiness, exaggerated posturing, and creeping backdrops to make trains “speed” were all part of the infant industry. No villain would dream of dying without spinning around thrice; and in general, the audience, comprised largely of men and women who daily pick the best of modern films apart, had to agree that the cinema had progressed. – New York Times (July , ) Contents After the Beginning 11 1. After-effects 23 Bits & Pieces 25 City Limits 45 Deconstructing the Other 55 Easterns 77 Facts and Fictions 96 Genre 108 2. Coincidences 127 History Lessons 129 Instant Nostalgia 148 Jeopardy 157 Kaleidoscopic Worlds 175 Landscapes 188 Modernities 207 3. Strategies 221 Narr