Movie-Made America

Hailed as the definitive work upon its original publication in 1975 and now extensively revised and updated by the author, this vastly absorbing and richly illustrated book examines film as an art form, technological innovation, big business, and shaper of American values.
Ever since Edison's peep shows first captivated urban audiences, film has had a revolutionary impact on American society, transforming culture from the bottom up, radically revising attitudes toward pleasure and sexuality, and at the same time, cementing the myth of the American dream. No book has measured film's impact more clearly or comprehensively than Movie-Made America.
This vastly readable and richly illustrated volume examines film as art form, technological innovation, big business, and cultural bellwether. It takes in stars from Douglas Fairbanks to Sly Stallone; auteurs from D. W. Griffith to Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee; and genres from the screwball comedy of the 1930s to the "hard body" movies of the 1980s to the independents films of the 1990s.
Combining panoramic sweep with detailed commentaries on hundreds of individual films, Movie-Made America is a must for any motion picture enthusiast.Part I: The Rise of Movie Culture
1. The Birth of a Mass Medium
2. Nickel Madness
3. Edison's Trust and How It Got Busted
4. D.W. Griffith and the Forging of Motion-Picture Art

Part II: The Movies in the Age of Mass Culture
5. Hollywood and the Dawning of the Aquarian Age
6. The Silent Film and the Passionate Life
7. Chaos, Magic, Physical Genius and the Art of Silent Comedy
8. Movie-Made Children
9. The House That Adolph Zukor Built

Part III: Mass Culture in the Age of Movies
10. The Moguls at Bay and the Censors' Triumph
11. The Golden Age of Turbulence and the Golden Age of Order
12. The Making of Cultural Myths: Walt Disney and Frank Capra
13. Selling Movies Overseas
14. The Hollywood Gold Rush

Part IV: The Decline of Movie Culture
15. Hollywood at War for America and at War with Itself
16. The Disappearing Audience and the Television Crisis
17. Hollywood's Collapse
18. The Promise of Personal Film

Part V: The Enduring Medium
19. Nadir and Revival
20. Hollywood and the Age of Reagan
21. From Myth to Memory
22. Independent Images"THE history of the American movie, combining social history, economics, and a precise and effective sense of film criticism."--Frank Friedel, Harvard University

"One of the best popular works we have in the field of media ecology....There is hardly a single question regarding the transforming power of movies that [Sklar] leaves untouched."--Neil PostmanRobert Sklar was born in 1936 and was educated in the public schools of Long Beach, California, and at Princeton University. After working as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, he received his Ph.D. in the history of American civilization from Harvard University of 1965. He was a professor of cinema at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts for more than thirty years, served on the selection committee of the New York Film Festival, and was a member of the National Film Preservation Board. Mr. Sklar's other books include Film: An International History of the Medium and City Boys: Cagney, Bogart, Garfield. He died in 2011.Revised and Updated