This book is a pathbreaking study of the 'unknown' Soviet cinema: the popular movies which were central to Soviet film production in the 1920s. Professor Youngblood discusses acting genres, the cinema stars, audiences, and the influences of foreign films and examines three leading filmmakers - Iakov Protazanov, Boris Barnet, and Fridikh Ermler. She also looks at the governmental and industrial circumstances underlying filmmaking practices of the era, and provides an invaluable survey of the contemporary debates concerning official policy on entertainment cinema. Professor Youngblood demonstrates that the film culture of the 1920s was predominantly and aggressively 'bourgeois' and enjoyed patronage that cut across class lines and political allegiance. Thus, she argues, the extent to which Western and pre-revolutionary influences, boureois directors and middle-class tastes dominated the film world is as important as the tradition of revolutionary utopianism in understanding the transformation of Soviet culture in the Stalin revolution.

On how American identity is shaped by motion pictures

In this updated edition of his classic text, Kenez covers the roots of Soviet cinema in the film heritage of pre-Revolutionary Russia, tracing the changes generated by the Revolution of 1917.

Cinema and Nation considers the ways in which film production and reception are shaped by ideas of national belonging and examines the implications of globalisation for the concept of national cinema.

In Imagining America, historian Alan M. Ball explores American influence in two newborn Russian states: the young Soviet Union and the modern Russian Republic. Ball deftly illustrates how in each era Russians have approached the United States with a conflicting mix of ideas—as a land to admire from afar, to shun at all costs, to emulate as quickly as possible, or to surpass on the way to a superior society. Drawing on a wide variety of sources including contemporary journals, newspapers, films, and popular songs, Ball traces the shifting Russian perceptions of American cultural, social, and political life. As he clearly demonstrates, throughout their history Russian imaginations featured a United States that political figures and intellectuals might embrace, exploit, or attack, but could not ignore.

Once derided as senseless entertainment, movies have gradually assumed a place among the arts. Raymond Haberski's provocative and insightful book traces the trajectory of this evolution throughout the twentieth century, from nickelodeon amusements to the age of the financial blockbuster. Haberski begins by looking at the barriers to film's acceptance as an art form, including the Chicago Motion Picture Commission hearings of 1918–1920, one of the most revealing confrontations over the use of censorship in the motion picture industry. He then examines how movies overcame the stigma attached to popular entertainment through such watershed events as the creation of the Museum of Modern Art's Film Library in the 1920s. The arguments between Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris's heralded a golden age of criticism, and Haberski focuses on the roles of Kael, Sarris, James Agee, Roger Ebert, and others, in the creation of "cinephilia." Described by Susan Sontag as "born of the conviction that cinema was an art unlike any other," this love of cinema centered on coffee houses, universities, art theaters, film festivals, and, of course, foreign films. The lively debates over the place of movies in American culture began to wane in the 1970s. Haberski places the blame on the loss of cultural authority and on the increasing irrelevance of the meaning of art. He concludes with a persuasive call for the re-emergence of a middle ground between art and entertainment, "something more complex, ambiguous, and vexing—something worth thought."

This collection of "Stitesiana" includes 29 essays on Russian culture, representing the bulk of 20 years of scholarship, in addition to well-known monographs and diverse pieces in popular magazines.