Prof. Richard Maltby – författare

This book analyses the diverse historical and geographical circumstances in which audiences have viewed American cinema. It looks at cinema audiences ranging from Manhattan nickelodeons to the modern suburban megaplex, and from provincial, small-town or rural America to the shanty towns of South Africa.

Going to the Movies studies the social and cultural history of movie audiences. Ranging broadly across historical time and geographical place, it analyses the role of movie theatres in local communities, the links between film and other entertainment media, non-theatrical exhibition and trends arising from the globalisation of audiences. There is an emphasis on movie-going outside the American North-East, and several chapters analyse the complexities of race and race formation in relation to cinema attendance.

This book “decodes” 1930s Hollywood movies and explains why they looked and behaved in the way they did. Organized through a series of related case studies, the book exposes Classical Hollywood movies to a detailed analysis of their historical, industrial and cultural contexts. In the process it utilizes industry data, aesthetic analysis and the insights of New Cinema History to explain why and how these movies assumed their familiar forms.

The book represents the summation of Richard Maltby’s four decades of scholarship in the field of Hollywood cinema. The essays presented here share an assumption that has increasingly informed the author’s critical method over the years: that any historical understanding of the films of this period requires a deep contextualization in the social circumstances surrounding both their production and consumption. In this way, the book introduces an innovative, overarching research methodology that synthesizes branches of research that are typically employed in isolation, including production, distribution, reception, film aesthetics, and cultural and historical context.

Of the book’s nine chapters, three are presented here for the first time, and four have been substantially revised and extended from their original publication.

This book “decodes” 1930s Hollywood movies and explains why they looked and behaved in the way they did. Organized through a series of related case studies, the book exposes Classical Hollywood movies to a detailed analysis of their historical, industrial and cultural contexts. In the process it utilizes industry data, aesthetic analysis and the insights of New Cinema History to explain why and how these movies assumed their familiar forms.

The book represents the summation of Richard Maltby’s four decades of scholarship in the field of Hollywood cinema. The essays presented here share an assumption that has increasingly informed the author’s critical method over the years: that any historical understanding of the films of this period requires a deep contextualization in the social circumstances surrounding both their production and consumption. In this way, the book introduces an innovative, overarching research methodology that synthesizes branches of research that are typically employed in isolation, including production, distribution, reception, film aesthetics, and cultural and historical context.

Of the book’s nine chapters, three are presented here for the first time, and four have been substantially revised and extended from their original publication.

This book brings together key works by pioneering film studies scholar Steve Neale. From the 1970s to the 2010s Neale’s vital and unparalleled contribution to the subject has shaped many of the critical agendas that helped to confirm film studies’ position as an innovative discipline within the humanities.

Although known primarily for his work on genre, Neale has written on a far wider range of topics. In addition to selections from the influential volumes Genre (1980) and Genre and Hollywood (2000), and articles scrutinizing individual genres – the melodrama, the war film, science fiction and film noir –   this Reader provides critical examinations of cinema and technology, art cinema, gender and cinema, stereotypes and representation, cinema history, the film industry, New Hollywood, and film analysis. Many of the articles included are recommended reading for a range of university courses worldwide, making the volume useful to students at undergraduate level and above, researchers, and teachers of film studies, media studies, gender studies and cultural studies.

The collection has been selected and edited by Frank Krutnik and Richard Maltby, scholars who have worked closely with Neale and been inspired by his diverse and often provocative critical innovations. Their introduction assesses the significance of Neale’s work, and contextualizes it within the development of UK film studies.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47788/YRCC6901