At The Picture Show

The motion picture industry in its earliest days seemed as ephemeral as the flickering images it produced. Considered an amusement fad even by their exhibitors, movies nevertheless spread quickly from big-city vaudeville houses to towns and rural communities across the nation. Small-town audiences, looking for more than the lurid melodramas and slapstick comedies popular in cities, often lined up to see films with conservative and educational themes: scenic panoramas, biblical tableaux, newsreels, and manufacturing scenes. In this social history of the cinema during the silent-film era, Kathryn H. Fuller charts the gradual homogenization of a diverse American movie audience as itinerant shows gave way first to nickelodeon theaters and then to more luxurious picture palaces. Fuller suggests that fan magazines helped to reduce the distinctions between rural and urban moviegoers and created a nationwide popular culture of film consumption. Analyzing the articles, advertisements, and letters in such publications as Motion Picture Story Magazine and Photoplay, Fuller shows that these fan magazines—which initially catered to adult readers—shifted their focus by the late 1910s to young women who, entranced by Hollywood glamour, eagerly bought products endorsed by the stars. Although the transformation of the movies into big-time entertainment had multiple sources, Fuller argues that ultimately the maturation of the film industry depended on the support of both urban and rural middle-class audiences. Providing the fullest portrait to date of the small-town audience's changing habits and desires, At the Picture Show demonstrates for the first time how a fan culture emerged in the United States, and enriches our understanding of mass media's relationship to early twentieth-century American society.

Get ready for an animal adventure with your little explorer! The Kids' Picture Show books, inspired by the hugely popular YouTube channel, introduce young readers to first words in cool 8-bit style. This sturdy board book, packed with images of animals, is the perfect introduction to creatures from around the world for babies and toddlers. The 8-bit illustration style makes the book even more fun and accessible for young children, and will also appeal to parents, grandparents, and everyone who has played classic video arcade games.

Katie's Picture Show was originally published in 1989 and has captured the imagination and hearts of budding art lovers for a quarter of a century. Now, Orchard Books proudly presents this new edition to celebrate this classic story's 25th birthday. Completely reillustrated throughout, and with a beautiful new cover look, this book will enchant Katie fans, new and old. My daughter was entranced. She demanded endless readings - The Times Join Katie as she visits the gallery for the first time with Grandma and discovers that art is wonderfully exciting, especially when five famous paintings come alive for her! Join the ever-curious Katie as she discovers that art can be fantastic fun - particularly when you step into the world inside the frame . . . The five masterpieces featured are: The Hay Wain by John Constable Madame Moitessier Seated by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Les Parapluies by Pierre-Auguste Renoir Tropical Storm With a Tiger by Henri Rousseau Dynamic Suprematism by Kasimir Malevich

This publication is a major evaluation of the 1970s American cinema, including cult film directors such as Bogdanovich Altman and Peckinpah.

Children and the Movies: Media Influence and the Payne Fund Controversy analyzes the first and most comprehensive study of the influence of movies on American youth, the Payne Fund Studies. First published in 1933, these studies are intrinsically important for their insights and conclusions regarding the effects of movies on behaviour. They are, moreover, also an important landmark of modern social science research, demonstrating the rapid evolution of this discipline in American academic institutions over the first three decades of the century.

"A historical look of 20th-century motion picture exhibition in a North Texas town, recalling the people and places who showed and watched movies. Charts the evolution from traveling exhibitors to the United States' largest multi-screen megaplex"--

“McMurtry is an alchemist who converts the basest materials to gold.” — New York Times Book Review The Last Picture Show (1966) is both a rambunctious coming-of-age story and an elegy to a forlorn Texas town trying to keep its one movie house alive. Adapted into the Oscar-winning film, this masterpiece immortalizes the lives of the hardscrabble residents who are threatened by the inexorable forces of the modern world.

This work is the continuation of a sustained inquiry into moving pictures, conducting with an awareness of their prominence and prevalence in the contemporary world. A major indicator of the ubiquity of motion pictures is noticed by world travelers, who see the traces of their universality with the satellites on nomadic yurts in Asia and TV sets in remote and poor African villages. It is only now becoming realised that this mode of communication may well be the most pervasive, and perhaps even the most important, mass medium ever invented. With that background in mind, this book focuses on “cinematic knowing” as an expression of ludenic experience, important as a major source of “play-learning” in a world which is increasingly “wired” to the various forms of moving pictures. It investigates how this way of seeing has expanded our visual acuity and experience, including not only hindsight and foresight, but also insight and indeed even “blindsight”. It discusses the acquired abilities inherent in our “cinematic understandability”, the extent and depth of knowing that is learned from our life-long experience of exposure to motion pictures, including forms other than “the movies”, such as TV programming, commercials, and documentaries. It proceeds on the assumption that the most influential of this universe of visual expression is the one with the most important background and cultural impact, the motion picture show. This ludenic center of popular fare involved the creation of a heterocosm, a body of popular knowledge that accumulates and promulgates values and interests in visually identifiable formats, becoming in the process a kind of cultural enthymeme enjoyed for its expressive ability to reach people, and proved to be resilient and flexible in adapting to and addressing new circumstances.

"Picture Show" gathers 150 compelling and memorable movie posters for a scenic tour of Hollywood history and a dazzling compendium of graphic design excellence.

A lively illustrated history that reveals how the movie business has fascinated, scandalized, and socialized the Twin Cities and its people.