Silent Cinema and the Politics of Space (New Directions in National Cinemas)

In this cross-cultural history of narrative cinema and media from the 1910s to the 1930s, leading and emergent scholars explore the transnational crossings and exchanges that occurred in early cinema between the two world wars. Drawing on film archives from around the world, this volume advances the premise that silent cinema freely crossed national borders and linguistic thresholds in ways that became far less possible after the emergence of sound. These essays address important questions about the uneven forces–geographic, economic, political, psychological, textual, and experiential–that underscore a non-linear approach to film history. The "messiness" of film history, as demonstrated here, opens a new realm of inquiry into unexpected political, social, and aesthetic crossings of silent cinema. Introduction / Jennifer M. Bean -- Picturing Space. Introduction / Anupama Kapse -- Location, Location: On The Plausibility Of Place Substitution / Mark B. Sandberg -- Insurgent Place As Visual Space: Location Shots And Rival Geographies Of 1857 Lucknow / Priya Jaikumar -- Prints In Motion. Introduction / Jennifer M. Bean -- Robespierre Has Been Lost: D. W. Griffith's Movies And The Soviet Twenties / Yuri Tsivian -- An Afterlife For Junk Prints: Serials And Other 'classics' In Late-1920s Tehran / Kaveh Askari -- Translations And Transportation: Toward A Transnational History Of The Intertitle / Laura Isabel Serna -- Impertinent Appropriations Introduction / Anupama Kapse -- From Misemono To Zigomar: A Discursive History Of Early Japanese Cinema / Aaron Gerow -- The Crisscrossed Stare: Chinese Protest And Propaganda In China's Not-so-silent Era / Yiman Wang -- Around The World In 80 Minutes: Douglas Fairbanks And The Indian Stunt Film / Anupama Kapse -- Cosmopolitan Sexualities And Female Stars. Introduction / Jennifer M. Bean -- National Soul/cosmopolitan Skin: Swedish Cinema At A Crossroads / Jan Olsson -- Queer Crossings: Greta Garbo, National Identity, And Gender Deviance / Laura Horak -- Cosmopolitan Women: Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, And Leni Riefenstahl / Patrice Petro. Edited By Jennifer M. Bean, Anupama Kapse, And Laura Horak. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 313-329) And Index. Cover 1 SILENT CINEMA AND THE POLITICS OF SPACE 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Acknowledgments 8 Introduction 14 Part I. Picturing Space 28 Introduction 28 1 Location, “Location”: On the Plausibility of Place Substitution 36 2 Insurgent Place as Visual Space: Location Shots and Rival Geographies of 1857 Lucknow 60 Part II. Prints in Motion 84 Introduction 84 3 Robespierre Has Been Lost: D. W. Griffith’s Movies and the Soviet Twenties 96 4 An Afterlife for Junk Prints: Serials and Other “Classics” in Late-1920s Tehran 112 5 Translations and Transportation: Toward a Transnational History of the Intertitle 134 Part III. Impertinent Appropriations 160 Introduction 160 6 From Misemono to Zigomar: A Discursive History of Early Japanese Cinema 170 7 The Crisscrossed Stare: Protest and Propaganda in China’s Not-So-Silent Era 199 8 Around the World in Eighty Minutes: Douglas Fairbanks and the Indian Stunt Film 223 Part IV. Cosmopolitan Sexualities and Female Stars 248 Introduction 248 9 National Soul / Cosmopolitan Skin: Swedish Cinema at a Crossroads 258 10 Queer Crossings: Greta Garbo, National Identity, and Gender Deviance 283 11 Cosmopolitan Women: Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Leni Riefenstahl 308 Bibliography 326 Contributors 344 Index 348