Film History, Popular Culture 

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 independent 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. 

Contents:
pt. 1: The rise of movie culture
The birth of a mass medium
Nickel madness
Edison's trust and how it got busted
D.W. Griffith and the forging of motion-picture art
pt. 2: The movies in the age of mass culture
Hollywood and the dawning of the Aquarian age
The silent film and the passionate life
Chaos, magic, physical genius and the art of silent comedy
Movie-made children
The house that Adolph Zukor built
pt. 3: Mass culture in the age of movies
The moguls at bay and the censors' triumph
The golden age at turbulence and the golden age of order
The making of cultural myths: Walt Disney and Frank Capra
Selling movies overseas
The Hollywood gold rush
pt. 4: The decline of movie culture
Hollywood at war for America and at war with itself
The disappearing audience and the television crisis
Hollywood's collapse
The promise of personal film
Nadir and revival
Hollywood and the age of Reagan
From myth to memory
Independent images