The gangster is perhaps the most potent figure in American cinema. Yet film criticism has focused almost entirely on a few canonical films such as Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and The Godfather trilogy, resulting in a limited and distorted understanding of the compelling presence and persistence of the gangster. Mob Culture presents a detailed examination of the ideological richness of the gangster film throughout Hollywood's production history, from the silent period to the present.Mob Culture explores how the gangster figure has been connected to various cultural and racial identities, how issues of gender and sexuality are frequently highlighted by the genre, and how film criticism has drawn on eugenics, sociology and psychology to try to explain and contain the gangster. An ideal guide to both the film history and the critical literature, Mob Culture redefines the American gangster at the movies.

'This important new volume reconstructs the forms of production, distribution and exhibition of films made in and about the colonies. It then ties them to wider theoretical issues about film and liberalism, spectacle and political economy, representation and rule. The result is one of the first volumes to examine how imperial rule is intimately tied to the emergence of documentary as a form and, indeed, how the history of cinema is at the same time the history of Empire.' BRIAN LARKIN, Barnard College 'This superb collection of new scholarship shows how cinema both communicated and aided the imperialist agenda throughout the twentieth century. In doing so, it shows film can be understood as one of the tools of empire, as much as the technology of weaponry or modes of administration: a means of education and indoctrination in the colonies and at home.' TOM GUNNING, University of Chicago At its height in 1919, the British Empire claimed 58 countries, 400 million subjects, and 14 million square miles of ground. Empire and Film brings together leading international scholars to examine the integral role cinema played in the control, organisation, and governance of this diverse geopolitical space. The essays reveal the complex interplay between the political and economic control essential to imperialism and the emergence and development of cinema in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. Contributors address how the production, distribution and exhibition of film were utilised by state and industrial and philanthropic institutions to shape the subject positions of coloniser and colonised; to demarcate between 'civilised' and 'primitive' and codify difference; and to foster a political economy of imperialism that was predicated on distinctions between core and periphery. The generic forms of colonial cinema were, consequently, varied: travelogues mapped colonial spaces; actuality films re-presented spectacles of royal authority and imperial conquest and conflict; home movies rendered colonial self-representation; state-financed newsreels and documentaries fostered political and economic control and the 'education' of British and colonial subjects; philanthropic and industrial organisations sponsored films to expand Western models of capitalism; British and American film companies made films of imperial adventure. These films circulated widely in Britain and the empire, and were sustained through the establishment of imperial networks of distribution and exhibition, including in particular innovative mobile exhibition circuits and non-theatrical spaces like schools, museums and civic centres. Empire and Film is a significant revision to the historical and conceptual frameworks of British cinema history, and is a major contribution to the history of cinema as a global form that emerged amid, and in dialogue with, the global flows of imperialism. The book is produced in conjunction with a major website housing freely available digitised archival films and materials relating to British colonial cinema, www.colonialfilm.org.uk, and a companion volume entitled Film and the End of Empire.

The Silent Cinema Reader is a comprehensive resource of key writings on early cinema, addressing filmmaking practice, film form, style and content, and the ways in which silent films were exhibited and understood by their audiences, from the beginnings of film in the late nineteenth century to the coming of sound in the late 1920s. The Reader covers international developments in film aesthetics, the growth of the American film industry and its relationship with foreign competitors at home and abroad, and the broader cultural, social and political contexts of film production and consumption in the United States as well as Britain, France, Russia and Germany. The Reader includes in-depth case studies of major directors and stars of the silent era, including Cecil B. DeMille, Eisenstein, D. W. Griffith, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino. Articles are grouped into thematic sections, each with an introduction by the editors, which focus on: * Film projection and variety shows * Storytelling and the nickelodeon * Cinema and reform * Feature films and cinema programmes * Classical Hollywood cinema * European national cinemas

Cinema and the Wealth of Nations explores how media principally in the form of cinema was used during the interwar years by elite institutions to establish and sustain forms of liberal political economy beneficial to their interests. It examines the media produced and circulated by institutions such as states, corporations, and investment banks, as well as the emergence of a corporate media industry and system supported by state policy and integral to the establishment of a new consumer system. Lee Grieveson sketches a genealogy of the use of media to encode liberal political and economic power across the period that saw the United States eclipse Britain as the globally hegemonic power and the related inauguration of new forms of liberal economic globalization. But this is not a distant history. Cinema and the Wealth of Nations examines a foundational conjuncture in the establishment of media forms and a media system instrumental in, and structural to, the emergence and expansion of a world system that has been-and continues to be-brutally violent, unequal, and destructive.

The vast, and vastly influential, American military machine has been aided and abetted by cinema since the earliest days of the medium. The US military realized very quickly that film could be used in myriad ways: training, testing, surveying and mapping, surveillance, medical and psychological management of soldiers, and of course, propaganda. Bringing together a collection of new essays, based on archival research, Wasson and Grieveson seek to cover the complex history of how the military deployed cinema for varied purposes across the the long twentieth century, from the incipient wars of US imperialism in the late nineteenth century to the ongoing War on Terror. This engagement includes cinema created and used by and for the military itself (such as training films), the codevelopment of technologies (chemical, mechanical, and digital), and the use of film (and related mass media) as a key aspect of American "soft power," at home and around the world. A rich and timely set of essays, this volume will become a go-to for scholars interested in all aspects of how the military creates and uses moving-image media.

'Film and the End of Empire', focuses on the years 1939 to circa 1966, encompassing WWII, the decline of the British formal empire, and the transition to the Commonwealth through policies of colonial development and warfare that maintained structures of colonial hegemoney. Authors address these films as complex historical records.

'This important new volume reconstructs the forms of production, distribution and exhibition of films made in and about the colonies. It then ties them to wider theoretical issues about film and liberalism, spectacle and political economy, representation and rule. The result is one of the first volumes to examine how imperial rule is intimately tied to the emergence of documentary as a form and, indeed, how the history of cinema is at the same time the history of Empire.' BRIAN LARKIN, Barnard College 'This superb collection of new scholarship shows how cinema both communicated and aided the imperialist agenda throughout the twentieth century. In doing so, it shows film can be understood as one of the tools of empire, as much as the technology of weaponry or modes of administration: a means of education and indoctrination in the colonies and at home.' TOM GUNNING, University of Chicago At its height in 1919, the British Empire claimed 58 countries, 400 million subjects, and 14 million square miles of ground. Empire and Film brings together leading international scholars to examine the integral role cinema played in the control, organisation, and governance of this diverse geopolitical space. The essays reveal the complex interplay between the political and economic control essential to imperialism and the emergence and development of cinema in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. Contributors address how the production, distribution and exhibition of film were utilised by state and industrial and philanthropic institutions to shape the subject positions of coloniser and colonised; to demarcate between 'civilised' and 'primitive' and codify difference; and to foster a political economy of imperialism that was predicated on distinctions between core and periphery. The generic forms of colonial cinema were, consequently, varied: travelogues mapped colonial spaces; actuality films re-presented spectacles of royal authority and imperial conquest and conflict; home movies rendered colonial self-representation; state-financed newsreels and documentaries fostered political and economic control and the 'education' of British and colonial subjects; philanthropic and industrial organisations sponsored films to expand Western models of capitalism; British and American film companies made films of imperial adventure. These films circulated widely in Britain and the empire, and were sustained through the establishment of imperial networks of distribution and exhibition, including in particular innovative mobile exhibition circuits and non-theatrical spaces like schools, museums and civic centres. Empire and Film is a significant revision to the historical and conceptual frameworks of British cinema history, and is a major contribution to the history of cinema as a global form that emerged amid, and in dialogue with, the global flows of imperialism. The book is produced in conjunction with a major website housing freely available digitised archival films and materials relating to British colonial cinema, www.colonialfilm.org.uk, and a companion volume entitled Film and the End of Empire.

In these two volumes of original essays, scholars from around the world address the history of British colonial cinema stretching from the emergence of cinema at the height of imperialism, to moments of decolonization andthe ending of formal imperialism in the post-Second World War.

Sinister, swaggering, yet often sympathetic, the figure of the gangster has stolen and murdered its way into the hearts of American cinema audiences. Despite the enduring popularity of the gangster film, however, traditional criticism has focused almost entirely on a few canonical movies such as Little Caesar, Public Enemy, and The Godfather trilogy, resulting in a limited and distorted understanding of this diverse and changing genre. Mob Culture offers a long-awaited, fresh look at the American gangster film, exposing its hidden histories from the Black Hand gangs of the early twentieth century to The Sopranos. Departing from traditional approaches that have typically focused on the "nature" of the gangster, the editors have collected essays that engage the larger question of how the meaning of criminality has changed over time. Grouped into three thematic sections, the essays examine gangster films through the lens of social, gender, and racial/ethnic issues. Destined to become a classroom favorite, Mob Culture is an indispensable reference for future work in the genre.

Cinema and the Wealth of Nations explores how media principally in the form of cinema was used during the interwar years by elite institutions to establish and sustain forms of liberal political economy beneficial to their interests. It examines the media produced and circulated by institutions such as states, corporations, and investment banks, as well as the emergence of a corporate media industry and system supported by state policy and integral to the establishment of a new consumer system. Lee Grieveson sketches a genealogy of the use of media to encode liberal political and economic power across the period that saw the United States eclipse Britain as the globally hegemonic power and the related inauguration of new forms of liberal economic globalization. But this is not a distant history. Cinema and the Wealth of Nations examines a foundational conjuncture in the establishment of media forms and a media system instrumental in, and structural to, the emergence and expansion of a world system that has been-and continues to be-brutally violent, unequal, and destructive.

White slave films, dramas documenting sex scandals, filmed prize fights featuring the controversial African-American boxer Jack Johnson, D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation"--all became objects of public concern after 1906, when the proliferation of nickelodeons brought moving pictures to a broad mass public. Lee Grieveson draws on extensive original research to examine the controversies over these films and over cinema more generally. He situates these contestations in the context of regulatory concerns about populations and governance in an early-twentieth-century America grappling with the powerful forces of modernity, in particular, immigration, class formation and conflict, and changing gender roles.
Tracing the discourses and practices of cultural and political elites and the responses of the nascent film industry, Grieveson reveals how these interactions had profound effects on the shaping of film content, form, and, more fundamentally, the proposed social function of cinema: how cinema should function in society, the uses to which it might be put, and thus what it could or would be. "Policing Cinema" develops new perspectives for the understanding of censorship and regulation and the complex relations between governance and culture. In this work, Grieveson offers a compelling analysis of the forces that shaped American cinema and its role in society.

The vast, and vastly influential, American military machine has been aided and abetted by cinema since the earliest days of the medium. The US military realized very quickly that film could be used in myriad ways: training, testing, surveying and mapping, surveillance, medical and psychological management of soldiers, and of course, propaganda. Bringing together a collection of new essays, based on archival research, Wasson and Grieveson seek to cover the complex history of how the military deployed cinema for varied purposes across the the long twentieth century, from the incipient wars of US imperialism in the late nineteenth century to the ongoing War on Terror. This engagement includes cinema created and used by and for the military itself (such as training films), the codevelopment of technologies (chemical, mechanical, and digital), and the use of film (and related mass media) as a key aspect of American "soft power," at home and around the world. A rich and timely set of essays, this volume will become a go-to for scholars interested in all aspects of how the military creates and uses moving-image media.

"Inventing Film Studies" offers original and provocative insights into the institutional and intellectual foundations of cinema studies. Many scholars have linked the origins of the discipline to late-1960s developments in the academy such as structuralist theory and student protest. Yet this collection reveals the broader material and institutional forces--both inside and outside of the university--that have long shaped the field. Beginning with the first investigations of cinema in the early twentieth century, this volume provides detailed examinations of the varied social, political, and intellectual milieus in which knowledge of cinema has been generated. The contributors explain how multiple instantiations of film study have had a tremendous influence on the methodologies, curricula, modes of publication, and professional organizations that now constitute the university-based discipline. Extending the historical insights into the present, contributors also consider the directions film study might take in changing technological and cultural environments.

"Inventing Film Studies" shows how the study of cinema has developed in relation to a constellation of institutions, technologies, practices, individuals, films, books, government agencies, pedagogies, and theories. Contributors illuminate the connections between early cinema and the social sciences, between film programs and nation-building efforts, and between universities and U.S. avant-garde filmmakers. They analyze the evolution of film studies in relation to the Museum of Modern Art, the American Film Council movement of the 1940s and 1950s, the British Film Institute, influential journals, cinephilia, and technological innovations past and present. Taken together, the essays in this collection reveal the rich history and contemporary vitality of film studies.
""
"Contributors" Charles R. Acland, Mark Lynn Anderson, Mark Betz, Zoe Druick, Lee Grieveson, Stephen Groening, Haden Guest, Amelie Hastie, Lynne Joyrich, Laura Mulvey, Dana Polan,
D. N. Rodowick, Philip Rosen, Alison Trope, Haidee Wasson, Patricia White, Sharon Willis,
Peter Wollen, Michael Zryd

Full Contributors:
Richard Abel, David Bordwell, Ben Brewster, Joseph Garcarnz, Frank Gray, Lee Grieveson, Tom Gunning, Sumiko Higashi, Peter Krämer, Charles Maland, Charles Musser, Roberta E. Pearson, Ben Singer, Shelley Stamp, Gaylyn Studlar, Kristin Thompson, Yuri Tsivian, William Uricchio, Ruth Vasey, Linda Williams