Description
Book SynopsisHollywood and cultural institutions worked together to insure their own survival and profitability and to provide a coherent, though shifting, American identity. This book explores how their needs coalesced and led to the development of a symbiotic relationship between the film industry and America's stewards of high culture.
Trade ReviewIt is in the author's discussion of these Cold War happenings that the narrative becomes almost cloak-and-dagger. Publishers Weekly A clearly written and well-researched historical work that makes a strong contribution to film scholarship. -- Heidi Kenaga The Moving Image A frequently profound ethical query into the costs of patronage. -- Kevin Hagopian Film Quarterly Thought-provoking. The American Historical Review Decherney does an excellent job exploring the individual players... and exposing how our current cinematic institutions and assumptions regarding film were founded. -- Erin Hills-Parks Film & History A very significant work that demands attentive and critical engagement. -- Tom Crosbie Screening the Past
Table of ContentsIntroduction: How Film Became Art 1. Vachel Lindsay and the Universal Film Collection 2. Overlapping Publics: Hollywood and Columbia University, 1915 3. Mandarins and Marxists: Harvard and the Rise of Film Experts 4. Iris Barry, Hollywood Imperialism, and the Gender of the Nation 5. The Museum of Modern Art and the Roots of the Cultural Cold War 6. The Politics of Patronage: How the NEA (Accidentally) Created American Avant-Garde Film Conclusion: The End of the Studio System
