Introduction
1. New York Pioneer
2. Paramount on Long Island
3. Freelance Filmmaking
4. Studio City
5. Edison’s Dream
6. Paramount Speaks
7. Talkies for Everyone
8. Independent Alternatives
9. Cartoons in the City
10. Film and Reality
11. Multicultural Revival
12. A Miniature Hollywood
13. Radio Visions
14. Live from New York
15. “We Have a City Here”
First Paperback Edition Subtitle: Film and Television
in New York from Griffith to Sarnoff Author:
Richard Koszarski Subject:Film
Studies, American
Studies Paper ISBN: 978-0-8135-4778-7 Pages:
592 pages Publication Date: March 2010
Events:
Koszarski, Hollywood On the Hudson
Tuesdays, July 13-August 10 Film Forum Hollywood On the
Hudson will be available at Film Forum's Concession 209 W Houston St, New
York, NY 10014
Website: http://filmforum.org/films/hollywoodonhudson.html
Koszarski, Hollywood On the Hudson The Political
Documentary
Introduction by Richard Koszarski
July 17 at 3:00PM
East Building Concourse, Auditorium
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Website: http://www.nga.gov/programs/film/filmandreality.shtm#politicaldoc Listen:
Praise:
"This is the
definitive history of New York filmmaking in the first half of the
twentieth century--and this is no small story or accomplishment.."—Steven J. Ross, author
of Working-Class Hollywood:
Silent Film and the Shaping
of Class in America
"A perfect blend of Hollywood history, film analysis, and New York
cultural history. Richard Koszarski is oneof the preemnient film
historians of our time."—Jeanine Basinger, chair of film studies, Wesleyan University
"Koszarski's book is both industrial saga and film-buff opium den: Not
only does he include all aspects of film production in New York, but
also television. The author also writes with such fire and detail about
all these films that you quickly forget most of them are either lost,
incomplete, or difficult to see at best."—Philippe Garnier, LA WeeklyDescription: Thomas Edison invented his motion picture
system in New Jersey in the 1890s, and within a few years most American
filmmakers could be found within a mile or two of the Hudson River.
They planted themselves here because they needed the artistic and
entrepreneurial energy that D. W. Griffith realized New York had in
abundance. But as the going rate for land and labor skyrocketed and
their business grew more industrialized, most of them moved out. The
way most historians explain it, the role of New York in the development
of American film ends here.
In Hollywood on
the Hudson, Richard Koszarski rewrites an important part of the
history of American cinema. During the 1920s and 1930s, film industry
executives had centralized the mass production of feature pictures in a
series of gigantic film factories scattered across Southern California,
while maintaining New York as the economic and administrative center.
But as Koszarski reveals, many writers, producers, and directors also
continued to work here, especially if their independent vision was too
big for the Hollywood production line.
East Coast filmmakers-Oscar Micheaux, Rudolph
Valentino, Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, Paul Robeson, Gloria Swanson,
Max Fleischer, and others-quietly created a studio system without
back-lots, long-term contracts or seasonal production slates.
They substituted "newsreel photography" for Hollywood glamour, targeted
niche audiences instead of middle-American families, ignored accepted
dramatic conventions, and pushed the boundaries of motion picture
censorship. Rebellious and unconventional, they saw the New York
studios as laboratories, not factories-and used them to pioneer the
development of new technologies (from talkies to television), new
genres, new talent, and ultimately, an entirely new vision of
commercial cinema. About the Author:
Richard Koszarski is
an associate professor of English and film studies at Rutgers
University, and the editor-in-chief of Film History: An International Journal.
His books include The Man You Loved
to Hate: Erich von Stroheim and Hollywood and An Evening's Entertainment:
The Age of the Silent Feature Picture.
