Research Catalog

The cinema and its shadow : race and technology in early cinema

Title
The cinema and its shadow : race and technology in early cinema / Alice Maurice.
Author
Maurice, Alice.
Publication
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2013]

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TextUse in library Sc D 13-1023Schomburg Center - Research & Reference

Details

Description
xi, 268 pages : illustrations; 23 cm
Summary
The Cinema and Its Shadow argues that race has defined the cinematic apparatus since the earliest motion pictures, especially at times of technological transition. In particular, this work explores how racial difference became central to the resolving of cinematic problems: the stationary camera, narrative form, realism, the synchronization of image and sound, and, perhaps most fundamentally, the immaterial image--the cinema's "(Bshadow," which figures both the material reality of the screen image and its racist past. Discussing early "(Brace subjects," Alice Maurice demonstrates that these films influenced cinematic narrative in lasting ways by helping to determine the relation between stillness and motion, spectacle and narrative drive. The book examines how motion picture technology related to race, embodiment, and authenticity at specific junctures in cinema's development, including the advent of narratives, feature films, and sound. In close readings of such films as The Cheat, Shadows, and Hallelujah!, Maurice reveals how the rhetoric of race repeatedly embodies film technology, endowing it with a powerful mix of authenticity and magic. In this way, the racialized subject became the perfect medium for showing off, shoring up, and reintroducing the cinematic apparatus at various points in the history of American film. Moving beyond analyzing race in purely thematic or ideological terms, Maurice traces how it shaped the formal and technological means of the cinema.
Subjects
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes filmography.
  • Includes bibliographical references, filmography and index.
Contents
Introduction: embodying cinema -- Performing body, performing image: race and the boundaries of early cinematic narrative -- Face, race, and screen: close-ups and the transition to the feature film -- Recasting shadows: race, image, and audience -- "Cinema at its source": synchronizing race and sound in the early talkies -- Conclusion: red, white, and blue: digital cinema, race, and avatar.
Call Number
Sc D 13-1023
ISBN
  • 9780816678044 (hc : alk. paper)
  • 0816678049 (hc : alk. paper)
  • 9780816678051 (pb : alk. paper)
  • 0816678057 (pb : alk. paper)
LCCN
  • 2012043821
  • 40022060012
OCLC
816563784
Author
Maurice, Alice.
Title
The cinema and its shadow : race and technology in early cinema / Alice Maurice.
Publisher
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2013]
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes filmography.
Includes bibliographical references, filmography and index.
Other Standard Identifier
40022060012
Research Call Number
Sc D 13-1023
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