From the kinetoscope, designed for use by one viewer at a time, to the lavish movie palaces of Hollywood's golden era, the experience of watching films has varied enormously across the film industry. Exhibition, The Film Reader explores the range of venues in which films have been shown, following the fluctuating status of film and the continuning struggle over audiences. Contributors trace the emergence of a culture of moviegoing, exploring the meanings conveyed to spectators through exhibition sites and practices, and raising key issues of distribution, access and consumption. How does the experience of moviegoing differ from television? Why did the corporate anonymity replace the individual flair of movie palace design? And how have changes in film exhibition influenced filmmakers?
Sections include: * Where the movies were traces the changing landscape of movie theatres, from the segregated nickelodeons of the silent era to the rise of art houses and mall theatres * The business of exhibition explores tensions between film producers and exhibitions, covering the major shifts in power from the emergence of chains in the 1920s, to the destruction of the movie palaces and the rise of the multiplex * The meanings of the exhibition site focuses on the experience of watching films in the fantastic word of movie palaces and on televison, and explores issues of gendered space in the movie theatre and public versus private viewing rituals. Contributors: Dudley Andrew, Anthony Downs, Gary Edgerton, Anne Firedberg, Kathryn Helgesen Fuller, Douglas Gomery, Thomas Guback, Ben M. Hall, Ina Rae Hark, Charlotte Herzog, Russell Meritt, William Paul, Suzanne I. Schiller, Gregory Waller, Barbara Wilinsky. Includes essays by: Dudley Andrew, Anthony Downs, Gary Edgerton, Anne Friedberg, Kathryn Helgesen Fuller, Douglas Gomery, Thomas Guback, Ben M. Hall, Ina Rae Hark, Charlotte Herzog, Russell Meritt, Wi