| In recent years, cinema historians have become interested in the phenomenon of the local film, a theatrically exhibited motion picture that depicted an audience who wished to see themselves in the movies. Although the origin of the local film is coterminous with the cinema itself, many historians have assumed that the practice declined after 1908, as producers turned to narrative fictional stories. In my dissertation, I argue that the local film did not die out, but instead adapted to changing circumstances of production, distribution, and exhibition.;I focus on three distinct modes, which I identify as the municipal booster film, the home talent film, and the Hollywoodesque film, that were prevalent in the transitional and early classical eras of the American cinema (1909--1934). Municipal booster films were sponsored by business groups, and were intended to be an advertisement for the town in which they were made. Home talent films featured local actors in narrative fiction films. Hollywoodesque films were made by directors who claimed to be from the movie industry, and reproduced studio techniques in towns they visited. Local films not only permitted cinema audiences to "see themselves" on screen, but also made these views legible in a cinema increasingly defined by narrative film style, centralized systems of production and distribution, and a national, mass audience. By writing the local film back into the history of American cinema, this dissertation examines the relationship between the cinema and everyday life in a period normally associated with the development of mass culture in the United States. |
