The Cine Goes to Town () von Richard Abel

Richard Abel's magisterial new book radically rewrites the history of French cinema between 1896 and 1914, particularly during the years when Pathé-Frères, the first major corporation in the new industry, led the world in film production and distribution. Based on extensive investigation of rare archival films and documents, and drawing on recent social and cultural histories of turn-of-the-century France and the United States, his book provides new insights into the earliest history of the cinema.

Abel tells how early French film entertainment changed from a cinema of attractions to the narrative format that Hollywood would so successfully exploit. He describes the popular genres of the era—comic chases, trick films andféeries, historical and biblical stories, family melodramas and grand guignol tales, crime and detective films—and shows the shift from short subjects to feature-length films. Cinema venues evolved along with the films as live music, color effects, and other new exhibiting techniques and practices drew larger and larger audiences. Abel explores the ways these early films mapped significant differences in French social life, helping to produce thoroughly bourgeois citizens for Third Republic France.

The Ciné Goes to Town recovers early French cinema's unique contribution to the development of the mass culture industry. As the one-hundredth anniversary of cinema approaches, this compelling demonstration of film's role in the formation of social and national identity will attract a wide audience of film scholars, social and cultural historians, and film enthusiasts.

Illustrations 
Preface 
Note to the 1998 Edition 
Acknowledgments 
Note on Terms 

1. Turn-of-the-Century France
2. The French Cinema Industry, 1896-1914 
The Big Four, 1896-I902 
Pathé Comes to Power, 1902-1907 
Strategies of Dominance, 1907-1911
Strategies of Survival, 1911-1914 

3 The Cinema of Attractions, 1896-1904 
Trick Films and Féeries 
Comic Films 
Diverging Paths: From Actualités to Historical and Realist Films 

4. The Transition to a Narrative Cinema, 1904-1907 
The Bricolage Model 
The Comic Chase Film and Company 
The Pleasure and Pain of Just Looking: Erotic Films and Others 
The Dramatic and Realist Films 
Dissemination and Difference 
The Cinema of Attractions (continued) 

5. The Pre-Feature, Single-Reel Story Film, 1907-1911 
Contemporary Melodramas: Light and Dark Variants 
Comics Come in Series 
Film d'Art and Films d'Art: The Historical Film and the Literary Adaptation 
Trick Films and Féeries 

6. The Rise of the Feature Film, 1911-1914 
The Historical Film Comes of Age 
Life As It Is: In and Out of Fashion 
Crime Pays: Detectives Versus Criminals 
The Comic Series in Full Swing 

Afterword 
Filmography 
Notes 
Bibliography 
Index