Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema

Janet Staiger

Published by Princeton University Press 1992

Interpreting Films

Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema

Janet Staiger

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691216065

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Figures and Sources Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
PART ONE: THEORETICAL CONCERNS
Chapter One The Use-Value of Reception Studies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
Chapter Two Reception Studies in Other Disciplines Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	16
Chapter Three Reception Studies in Film and Television Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
Chapter Four Toward a Historical Materialist Approach to Reception Studies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
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 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
Chapter Six 'The Handmaiden of Villainy": Foolish Wives, Politics, Gender Orientation, and the Other Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	124
Chapter Seven The Birth of a Nation: Reconsidering Its Reception Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Chapter Eight The Logic of Alternative Readings: A Star Is Born Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
Chapter Nine With the Compliments of the Auteur: Art Cinema and the Complexities of Its Reading Strategies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	178
Chapter Ten Chameleon in the Film, Chameleons in the Audience; or, Where Is Parody? The Case ofZelig Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	196
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	210
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
Select Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271