Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters write by Sheldon Hall. This book was released on 2010. Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Considers the history of the American blockbuster-the large-scale, high-cost film-as it evolved from the 1890s to today.
Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters
Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters write by Sheldon Hall. This book was released on 2010-04-15. Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Considers the history of the American blockbuster—the large-scale, high-cost film—as it evolved from the 1890s to today. The pantheon of big-budget, commercially successful films encompasses a range of genres, including biblical films, war films, romances, comic-book adaptations, animated features, and historical epics. In Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History authors Sheldon Hall and Steve Neale discuss the characteristics, history, and modes of distribution and exhibition that unite big-budget pictures, from their beginnings in the late nineteenth century to the present. Moving chronologically, the authors examine the roots of today's blockbuster in the "feature," "special," "superspecial," "roadshow," "epic," and "spectacle" of earlier eras, with special attention to the characteristics of each type of picture. In the first section, Hall and Neale consider the beginnings of features, specials, and superspecials in American cinema, as the terms came to define not the length of a film but its marketable stars or larger budget. The second section investigates roadshowing as a means of distributing specials and the changes to the roadshow that resulted from the introduction of synchronized sound in the 1920s. In the third section, the authors examine the phenomenon of epics and spectacles that arose from films like Gone with the Wind, Samson and Deliliah, and Spartacus and continues to evolve today in films like Spider-Man and Pearl Harbor. In this section, Hall and Neale consider advances in visual and sound technology and the effects and costs they introduced to the industry. Scholars of film and television studies as well as readers interested in the history of American moviemaking will enjoy Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters.
The Encyclopedia of Epic Films
The Encyclopedia of Epic Films - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Encyclopedia of Epic Films write by Constantine Santas. This book was released on 2014-03-21. The Encyclopedia of Epic Films available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Soon after film came into existence, the term epic was used to describe productions that were lengthy, spectacular, live with action, and often filmed in exotic locales with large casts and staggering budgets. The effort and extravagance needed to mount an epic film paid off handsomely at the box office, for the genre became an immediate favorite with audiences. Epic films survived the tribulations of two world wars and the Depression and have retained the basic characteristics of size and glamour for more than a hundred years. Length was, and still is, one of the traits of the epic, though monolithic three- to four-hour spectacles like Gone with the Wind (1939) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) have been replaced today by such franchises as the Harry Potter films and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Although the form has evolved during many decades of existence, its central elements have been retained, refined, and modernized to suit the tastes of every new generation. The Encyclopedia of Epic Films identifies, describes, and analyzes those films that meet the criteria of the epic—sweeping drama, panoramic landscapes, lengthy adventure sequences, and, in many cases, casts of thousands. This volume looks at the wide variety of epics produced over the last century—from the silent spectacles of D. W. Griffith and biblical melodramas of Cecil B. DeMille to the historical dramas of David Lean and rollercoaster thrillers of Steven Spielberg. Each entry contains: Major personnel behind the camera, including directors and screenwriters Cast and character listings Plot summary Analysis Academy Award wins and nominations DVD and Blu-ray availability Resources for further study This volume also includes appendixes of foreign epics, superhero spectaculars, and epics produced for television, along with a list of all the directors in the book. Despite a lack of overall critical recognition and respect as a genre, the epic remains a favorite of audiences, and this book pays homage to a form of mass entertainment that continues to fill movie theaters. The Encyclopedia of Epic Films will be of interest to academics and scholars, as well as any fan of films made on a grand scale.
Playing the Percentages
Playing the Percentages - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Playing the Percentages write by Derek Long. This book was released on 2024-04-16. Playing the Percentages available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. "In the early 1910s through the 1930s, as developing studios embodied the cinema landscape, distribution played a significant role in defining the structure of the American film industry. Playing the Percentages addresses the material history of distribution from the early days of short films to the sound features that dominated the silver screen. While many histories of this time period account for the ascent of the studio system and the Golden Age of film, there is a tendency to encourage a teleological view of an oligopolistic studio system as inevitable. Studying the material history of distribution in the growth of Hollywood, Long makes a case for the domination of the studio system as the unforeseen result of multiple battling distribution practices. He argues that distribution, with roots in other methods of media production, was a complex and diverse system of ever-shifting wrangling between distributors and exhibitors that allowed for, but did not determine, the domination of the studio system"--
Spectacle in Classical Cinemas
Spectacle in Classical Cinemas - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Spectacle in Classical Cinemas write by Tom Brown. This book was released on 2015-08-11. Spectacle in Classical Cinemas available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Spectacle is not often considered to be a significant part of the style of ‘classical’ cinema. Indeed, some of the most influential accounts of cinematic classicism define it virtually by the supposed absence of spectacle. Spectacle in ‘Classical’ Cinemas: Musicality and Historicity in the 1930s brings a fresh perspective on the role of the spectacular in classical sound cinema by focusing on one decade of cinema (the 1930s), in two ‘modes’ of filmmaking (musical and historical films), and in two national cinemas (the US and France). This not only brings to light the special rhetorical and affective possibilities offered by spectacular images but refines our understanding of what ‘classical’ cinema is and was.
