{"title":"Sergei Eisenstein's \"The Form of the Script\": A New Translation","authors":"A. Ksenofontova","doi":"10.2979/fih.2022.a900044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/fih.2022.a900044","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This paper analyzes Sergei Eisenstein's essay \"The Form of the Script\" (1929), focusing particularly on its publication and translation history. It reconstructs the missing parts and the logic of the essay based on its original Russian print and an early German translation. In so doing, the paper clarifies Eisenstein's position in the debates surrounding the various forms and formats of screenwriting. It additionally draws attention to the role of rhythm in Eisenstein's screenwriting theory and in his essayistic writing. Finally, this article offers a new translation of \"The Form of the Script,\" which brings the essay as close as possible to its original publication.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"78 1","pages":"109 - 125"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139369646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gotham Book Mart's Spring 1938 Film File Catalog","authors":"Nathaniel Brennan","doi":"10.2979/fih.2022.a900043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/fih.2022.a900043","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This essay introduces the Gotham Book Mart Film File, a bibliographic catalog of film literature published in 1938. The Film File is placed in dialogue with contemporaneous efforts at cultural institutions like the Museum of Modern Art to develop film studies as a field of research. The Gotham Book Mart's catalog functions in numerous ways: generally, it reflects the state of film studies as a developing discipline in 1938; it broadens our understanding of how cultural institutions shape fields of knowledge; and it illustrates how these institutions, large and small, converged in New York's film culture. The essay suggests that bookshops and publishing were as important in the history of the city's cultural life—and in the development of new disciplines like film studies—as libraries, museums, and archives.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"62 1","pages":"108 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139369607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Writing in Sound: Frances Marion at MGM, 1925–1933","authors":"Kallan Benjamin","doi":"10.2979/fih.2022.a900042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/fih.2022.a900042","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This paper examines screenwriter Frances Marion's use of sound in scripts she wrote during the transitional period from silent to sound film. Engaging feminist historiography, screenwriting studies, and sound studies, I argue that Marion's expressive use of narrativized sound in both sound and silent scripts was remarkably innovative, yet underappreciated. Her skillful use of integrated sound helps account for her success in the early 1930s and aligns with the style of sound filmmaking that later came to dominate.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"28 1","pages":"59 - 82"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139369572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Still Photographs, Publicity, and the Making of Cecil B. DeMille's Ten Commandments (1956)","authors":"J. Opp","doi":"10.2979/fih.2022.a900040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/fih.2022.a900040","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:From 1954 to 1956, tens of thousands of still photographs were taken, reviewed, printed, and circulated to promote Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956). By tracing the conflicts that emerged over their management, this study centers the photographs and their distribution within an ecosystem of public relations, print media, and film production. While studio photographers produced the bulk of the photographs, their role was overshadowed by celebrity photographers, including Yousuf Karsh and Yul Brynner. Changes in the visual media landscape and Hollywood's photographic infrastructure threatened both the still photographers and the ability of studio publicists to shape the narrative.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"9 1","pages":"1 - 29"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139369593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Most Famous Costume Designer: Reviewing Edith Head's Career through a Contractual Lens","authors":"Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén","doi":"10.2979/fih.2022.a900041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/fih.2022.a900041","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Edith Head, possibly Hollywood's most iconic costume designer, won a record eight Oscar statuettes for Best Costume Design. Despite her popularity, Head has also sparked controversy; many detractors question her talent as a designer by arguing that her success rested merely on her self-promotional efforts rather than her work inside the wardrobe department. This article explores Head's career vis-à-vis the discourses surrounding her public persona to understand how she constructed her image as Hollywood's most famous costume designer, surviving for over five decades in an industry fraught with constant economic and political turmoil. In doing so, this article will shed light on the activities assigned to her as head of costume during and after the studio era.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"29 1","pages":"30 - 58"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139369622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Motion-Picture Rights Contract: Legal Foundations and Trade Practices in the Studio Era","authors":"Erica L. Moulton","doi":"10.2979/fih.2023.a911558","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/fih.2023.a911558","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT: This article relates the piecemeal history of the motion-picture rights contract—a legal document that emerged following several high-profile court cases that clarified the distinct existence of film rights from other subsidiary rights, including dra matic or theatrical. By delving into negotiations surrounding several film rights contracts between best-selling author Edna Ferber and Warner Bros., I demonstrate the tenuous relationship between the American copyright system and the trade practices developed by lawyers and agents. Without clear guidance on subsidiary rights, motion-picture rights contracts were inherently flexible documents, capable of bending to favor whichever side could leverage the most power.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135505418","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exhibition Ergonomics: The Interactive Film and Media Theory of Lillian Moller Gilbreth","authors":"Julia A. Irwin","doi":"10.2979/fih.2023.a911555","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/fih.2023.a911555","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT: This article examines the 1910s media pedagogy of Dr. Lillian Gilbreth, industrial psychologist and collaborator of Frank Gilbreth in the development of motion study. Intending to reconcile the incongruities between workers and modern machines, Lillian drew on the psychology of William James to devise the theoretical grounds for the Gilbreths' production and use of moving images. The essay shows how Lillian Gilbreth positioned film as an interactive medium, directing experimental exhibition practices that instantiated mimesis among spectators; treated features of bodily difference as individually addressable and serviceable to productivity; and exploited the human body's predisposition for habituation, and therefore predictability.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135505901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Negative and Positive Images: Race, Empire, and Family in Interwar French Pathé Baby Advertising","authors":"Hannah M. Stamler","doi":"10.2979/filmhistory.34.3.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/filmhistory.34.3.02","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article contributes to scholarship on small-gauge and home cinema by situating the advent of the Pathé Baby within interwar French politics and society. Through close analysis of period advertising, it argues that Pathé mobilized pronatalist and imperialist discourses to make 9.5mm home projection and filmmaking attractive to white, middle-class, metropolitan consumers, presenting home cinema as means of encountering the French Empire on the one hand and of promoting the so-called French race on the other. In drawing such connections, the study also seeks to enrich the growing body of scholarship on the entanglement of domestic cinema, gender, empire, and race.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128396016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Recent Books in Film History","authors":"","doi":"10.2979/fih.2023.a911560","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/fih.2023.a911560","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"3 4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135505895","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"The Most Important Thing in This Business Is the Films\": Marc Ferrez & Filhos, Exclusive Agent of Pathé Frères and Film Distribution Pioneer in Brazil (1907–1908)","authors":"Rafael de Luna Freire","doi":"10.2979/filmhistory.34.3.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/filmhistory.34.3.01","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This paper analyzes the first two years of operation of Marc Ferrez & Filhos (Marc Ferrez & Sons), a pioneer of film distribution in Brazil. As exclusive representative of French Pathé Frères in the country, the company oversaw the expansion of permanent movie theaters in Rio de Janeiro starting in 1907, created a national distribution network, and shaped the budding film market in Brazil. The paper shows that the increase in domestic film production after 1908, the so-called belle époque of Brazilian cinema, resulted from Marc Ferrez & Filhos' dominance in programming at the best movie theaters in the capital of Brazil using their own original and exclusive representation model.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130320660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}