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Interpreting Films : Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema / Janet Staiger.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2021]Copyright date: ©1992Description: 1 online resource (290 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691216065
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 791.43/01 20
LOC classification:
  • PN1995 .S6735 1992
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures and Sources -- Preface -- PART ONE: THEORETICAL CONCERNS -- Chapter One The Use-Value of Reception Studies -- Chapter Two Reception Studies in Other Disciplines -- Chapter Three Reception Studies in Film and Television -- Chapter Four Toward a Historical Materialist Approach to Reception Studies -- PART TWO: STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE RECEPTION OF AMERICAN FILMS -- Chapter Five Rethinking "Primitive" Cinema: Intertextuality, the Middle-Class Audience, and Reception Studies -- Chapter Six 'The Handmaiden of Villainy": Foolish Wives, Politics, Gender Orientation, and the Other -- Chapter Seven The Birth of a Nation: Reconsidering Its Reception -- Chapter Eight The Logic of Alternative Readings: A Star Is Born -- Chapter Nine With the Compliments of the Auteur: Art Cinema and the Complexities of Its Reading Strategies -- Chapter Ten Chameleon in the Film, Chameleons in the Audience; or, Where Is Parody? The Case ofZelig -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Select Bibliography -- Index
Summary: Employing a wide range of examples from Uncle Tom's Cabin and Birth of a Nation to Zelig and Personal Best, Janet Staiger argues that a historical examination of spectators' responses to films can make a valuable contribution to the history, criticism, and philosophy of cultural products. She maintains that as artifacts, films do not contain immanent meanings, that differences among interpretations have historical bases, and that these variations are due to social, political, and economic conditions as well as the viewers' constructed images of themselves. After proposing a theory of reception study, the author demonstrates its application mainly through analyzing the varying responses of audiences to certain films at specific moments in history. Staiger gives special attention to how questions of class, gender, sexual preference, race, and ethnicity enter into film viewers' interpretations. Her analysis reflects recent developments in post-structuralism, cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis, and cultural studies, and includes a discussion of current reader-response models in literary and film studies as well as an alternative approach for thinking about historical readers and spectators.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780691216065

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures and Sources -- Preface -- PART ONE: THEORETICAL CONCERNS -- Chapter One The Use-Value of Reception Studies -- Chapter Two Reception Studies in Other Disciplines -- Chapter Three Reception Studies in Film and Television -- Chapter Four Toward a Historical Materialist Approach to Reception Studies -- PART TWO: STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE RECEPTION OF AMERICAN FILMS -- Chapter Five Rethinking "Primitive" Cinema: Intertextuality, the Middle-Class Audience, and Reception Studies -- Chapter Six 'The Handmaiden of Villainy": Foolish Wives, Politics, Gender Orientation, and the Other -- Chapter Seven The Birth of a Nation: Reconsidering Its Reception -- Chapter Eight The Logic of Alternative Readings: A Star Is Born -- Chapter Nine With the Compliments of the Auteur: Art Cinema and the Complexities of Its Reading Strategies -- Chapter Ten Chameleon in the Film, Chameleons in the Audience; or, Where Is Parody? The Case ofZelig -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Select Bibliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Employing a wide range of examples from Uncle Tom's Cabin and Birth of a Nation to Zelig and Personal Best, Janet Staiger argues that a historical examination of spectators' responses to films can make a valuable contribution to the history, criticism, and philosophy of cultural products. She maintains that as artifacts, films do not contain immanent meanings, that differences among interpretations have historical bases, and that these variations are due to social, political, and economic conditions as well as the viewers' constructed images of themselves. After proposing a theory of reception study, the author demonstrates its application mainly through analyzing the varying responses of audiences to certain films at specific moments in history. Staiger gives special attention to how questions of class, gender, sexual preference, race, and ethnicity enter into film viewers' interpretations. Her analysis reflects recent developments in post-structuralism, cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis, and cultural studies, and includes a discussion of current reader-response models in literary and film studies as well as an alternative approach for thinking about historical readers and spectators.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)