Motor City Movie Culture, 1916–1925 offre un panorama aussi large que précis de la montée en puissance de la culture cinématographique hollywoodienne à Détroit, une ville dont la population est en plein essor et dont la démographie est complexe. Richard Abel étudie le rôle des organisations locales de Detroit dans la production, la distribution, l’exploitation et la publicité des films, afin d’intégrer le cinéma dans la vie quotidienne. Exploitant une mine de documents de première main – journaux, cartes géographiques, annuaires de la ville, revues spécialisées rares, programmes de cinéma et actualités locales – Abel montre comment des entrepreneurs ont travaillé pour attirer les spectateurs des divers quartiers ethniques de Détroit dans les salles de cinéma. Couvrant des sujets tels que la distribution, les pratiques de programmation, les films de non-fiction et la couverture des films dans les journaux locaux, avec des entr’actes qui approfondissent le rôle des personnes et des organisations clés, ce livre démontre combien, conjointement au travail des studios californiens et des sièges sociaux de New York, les efforts déployés dans les villes métropolitaines régionales comme Détroit ont été essentiels au développement d’une culture cinématographique de masse aux États-Unis.
Reviews excerpts by Domitorians:
“Richard Abel takes us into the unexplored and unexpectedly rich terrain of Detroit at the beginning of the twentieth century. We learn that the teeming, multicultural metropolis was famous for its cigars as well as its cars, and that moviegoing and even some fledgling movie production were thriving. With his distinctive literary voice, Abel talks us through volumes of rare documents and ephemera, revealing for the first time the trove that exists in numerous archives and private collections, sharing his infectious curiosity, and inviting us on his personal journey through the Motor City’s movies.”
~Donald Crafton, University of Notre Dame
“Motor City Movie Culture is a sharp continuation of the thrust of Abel’s last few books into the Hollywood era. Narrowing the focus onto a major city—Detroit—Abel tackles a full decade when daily newspaper publicity made fandom for movie stars habitual. Motor City Movie Culture explains how metropolitan newspapers became essential channels for Hollywood publicity—not just conduits but partners with first-run theater chains, anchoring the studio system regionally. One of 30 regional hubs for film distribution across the US, Detroit’s showmen built their city a theatre district of lavish movie palaces at Grand Circus Park, surrounded by a dozen neighborhood zones each with their own palaces. Previous scholarship on film exhibition in the 1920s has emphasized the end of local control and the loss of regional distinctions. Abel confirms how studio-controlled first-run theaters were reliant on local networks to add regional twists.”
~Paul S. Moore, Ryerson University, Toronto
“Offering the same extraordinary attention to detail and richly ambitious scope that have characterized Richard Abel’s justly acclaimed studies of American silent cinema in the 1900s and 1910s, Motor City Movie Culture unearths and makes sense of a wealth of new information about Detroit, providing an important perspective on film exhibition and film production in metropolitan America during the late ‘teens and 1920s.”
~Greg Waller, editor of Film History, Indiana University
