Beyond the Screen: Institutions, Networks and Publics of Early Cinema

Description

Early moving pictures were not only “harmless entertainment” or “a business, pure and simple,” as the U.S. Supreme Court defined the medium in 1915. Looking beyond the screen of a century ago, the essays in this collection recover an often utopian vision for cinema, imagined to have emancipatory potential to educate and motivate audiences to act together as publics. In national and local contexts from Europe, North America and around the world, cinema entered the domains of science and health education, social and religious uplift, labour organizing and political campaigning. Early movies of all sorts were shown to prisoners, shoppers, news readers, church and museum-goers, and students of all ages. These essays collectively consider non-theatrical cinema, documenting the people, institutions, and publics who worked to make movies more than entertainment.

This is an edited volume of papers selected from the 2010 DOMITOR meeting (Toronto).

Biography

Marta Braun is Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in Photographic Preservation and Collections Management at Ryerson University in Toronto.
Charlie Keil is the Director of the Cinema Studies Institute and Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto.
Rob King is an Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and History at the University of Toronto.
Paul S. Moore is Associate Professor of Communication and Culture at Ryerson University.
Louis Pelletier is a PhD candidate at Concordia University where he is researching the history of film exhibition in Montreal.