Cecil B. DeMille and American Culture: The Silent Era [Hardcover]

Sumiko Higashi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2, 1994

Cecil B. DeMille and American Culture demonstrates that the director, best remembered for his overblown biblical epics, was one of the most remarkable film pioneers of the Progressive Era. In this innovative work, which integrates cultural history and cultural studies, Sumiko Higashi shows how DeMille artfully inserted cinema into genteel middle-class culture by replicating in his films such spectacles as elaborate parlor games, stage melodramas, department store displays, Orientalist world's fairs, and civic pageantry. The director not only established his signature as a film author by articulating middle-class ideology across class and ethnic lines, but by the 1920's had become a trendsetter, with set and costume designs that influenced the advertising industry to create a consumer culture based on female desire. Drawing on a wealth of previously untapped material from the DeMille Archives and other collections, Higashi provides imaginative readings of DeMille's early feature films, viewing them in relation to the dynamics of social change, and she documents the extent to which the emergence of popular culture was linked to the genteel tradition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"A very important contribution both to cinema history and to early twentieth-century American history. . . . Higashi rewrites the history of early American cinema as a social history, situating it clearly in the development of American middle-class culture."--Richard Abel, author of The Ciné Goes to Town

"Cecil B. DeMille and the American Culture contributes significantly to scholarly understanding of the construction of the classic Hollywood cinema and, more generally, of consumer culture in the modern West."--Francis G. Couvares, Amherst College

From the Back Cover

"A very important contribution both to cinema history and to early twentieth-century American history. . . . Higashi rewrites the history of early American cinema as a social history, situating it clearly in the development of American middle-class culture." (Richard Abel, author of The Cin Goes to Town)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (December 2, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520085566
• ISBN-13: 978-0520085565
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,579,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Quite good, June 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Cecil B. DeMille and American Culture: The Silent Era (Paperback)

This book was quite good but the best part was the behind the scenes view of cinema in the 20's. It is quite well written and focus on the genius of the director. I quite enjoyed it bu it would have profered more on the actual films of DeMille rather than the backround. Also i did not think it had a acurate portryal of some of his helper and really neglected to mention the people who helped Demille become who he was.