The author: Jan Olsson is a professor of Cinema Studies at Stockholm University.
This is a wonderful book I
stumbled across while shopping in a Japanese bookstore in Los Angeles a
few weeks ago. As mentioned in an earlier post at another blog, 90% of the offerings at this bookstore were in
Japanese, but the English-book section was outstanding. I picked up a
"Manga" book on electricity, and a graphic novel on Steve Jobs. But the
best buy was the 2008 Los Angeles Before Hollywood by Jan Olsson.
I enjoy it mostly because it is a most challenging book to read; very,
very dense; somewhat obtuse writing, I guess, one would say. I have
started the book several times, and have had to read the first two or
three pages three or four times to figure out what the author's intent
for the book was. I have now gotten through the introduction after the
fourth or fifth try, and for the first time, finally looked at the
author's bio on wikipedia. It looks like it's a much better book than I
had even imagined.
I don't recommend the book for anyone but the most diehard movie
historians. It has real heft, again literally and figuratively. It looks
compact but it is "heavy." It has ten chapters (plus an introduction),
394 pages; notes, 50 pages; a 14-page bibliography; and a 19-page index.
The book covers the history of film in Los Angeles and the West Coast
from 1905 to 1915, a period the author considers a transitional period
for film. Two films serve as symbolic bookends for this decade: Escape From Sing Sing (1905) and The Clansman, later The Birth of a Nation
(1915). I recall seeing the latter many years ago, but I forget where
and exactly when -- but it must have been back in high school, if you
can imagine that. It left a huge impression on me.
I doubt I will finish the book any time soon. I may not finish it at.
Certainly, I will skim some portions of is. It is interesting,
rewarding, and fulfilling to see my alma mater, University of Southern
California mentioned often.
The early 1910s was a period when social scientists and progressive reformers began mapping the amusement and recreational geographies in America. In the spring of 1911 renowned social scientist Dr Emory S Bogardus was summoned to Los Angeles at the behest of the University of Southern California's president.
The mission: establishing a department of sociology at USC. The result: a highly regarded and in several respects groundbreaking academic institution crafted during Bogardus' long tenure at the helm.
According to a small news item from December, 1911, Dr Bogardus, during his first year as a professor at USC, had thirty-five students in a civic-education course prepare to maps of downtown Los Angels marking all its places of amusement and recreations based on a systematic inventory of 3,600 blocks.
1905 - 1915: a transitory period for film
Paging through the newspapers during this time period may be one of the best ways to learn about the evolution of film during this transitory period.
Bookend movies: Escape From Sing Sing (1905; the reel has been lost); and The Clansman (re-titled, Birth of a Nation, D. W. Griffith, 1915).
1905: the nickelodian craze.
The Saunterer. From the net:
One hundred and thirty years ago today, the new owner of the Los Angeles Daily Times, Colonel Harrison Gray Otis, reported to work in this modest building at Temple and New High. According to the 1882 newspaper announcement, Otis would have editorial oversight of the Daily Times and Weekly Mirror (now the Los Angeles Times). Otis and his wife Eliza had purchased 15% of the newspaper. While Harrison published bombastic editorials, Eliza wrote articles for the women’s section and columns called “The Saunterer” and “Susan Sunshine.” By 1886, the couple bought out their partners and owned 100 percent of the newspaper. -- the blog posting was undated
"Otis saw a glorious future for Los Angeles whose population totaled about 12,000 when he joined the Times. ‘Los Angeles is in a transition state,’ he wrote in an early editorial. ‘She has finally waked up from the dull lethargy of those old days when she was one great sheep-walk and cattle range. All she needs now is men of brawn and brains to grow up with her.’" [Harrison Gray Otis became the newspaper's editor in July, 1882.]
The Times.
The flaneur.
In acknowledgements, a long paragraph devoted to the University of Southern California.
The Introduction
This was cool: William Randolph Hearst's Los Angeles Examiner was one of many cogs in the Chief's political machine, and he also enlisted the film medium for campaign purposes in the broad sense, page 19.
Hearst's news empire instigated such a campaign together with the Selig film company for the purpose of bolstering California's assets after the Panama Canal opened, p. 22-23.
The Selig Polyscope Company, link here, was an American motion picture company that was founded in 1896 by William Selig in Chicago, Illinois.
The company produced hundreds of early, widely distributed commercial moving pictures, including the first films starring Tom Mix, Harold Lloyd, Colleen Moore (bobbed haircut) and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.
Selig Polyscope also established Southern California's first permanent movie studio, in the historic Edendale district of Los Angeles (Echo Park, Los Feliz, and Silver Lake) -- Ededale, wow, what an incredible history -- the birth of the LA movie industry; silent movies; Charlie Chaplin's first movie filmed there; Keystone Cops.
Ending film production in 1918, the business, which had become known for its film production animals, became an animal and prop supplier to other studios and a zoo and amusement park attraction in East Los Angeles. The amusement park and zoo went into decline during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Chapter I: Escape From Sing Sing and Nickelodeon-Era Amusement Theory.
Chapter 2: Newsprint and Nitrate, Columns ad Critics.
Chapter 3: Amusement Mobility In Los Angeles: Geography, Venues, and Exhibitors
Chapter 4: Streets, Screens, and Scribes
Nickelodion and the influence of Mexicans early on -- p. 153.
Chapter 5: Regulatory Discourses
Chapter 6: Uplifting Initiatives: Coupons, Daylight Screens, and Policewomen.
Chapter 7: "Whizz! Bang! Smash!" -- Hearst, Girls, and Formats
Mary Pickford is mentioned but not United Artists. The book covers the American history of film from 1905 to 1915. United Artists -- Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, D. W. Griffith, and Charlie Chaplin -- was not founded until 1919.
Hearst Press.
Grace Darling, wiki.
Darling was reportedly born in New York City. By the mid-1910s, she was under contract at Hearst-Selig, and would write travelogues for Hearst papers from her globe-trotting adventures. She was a bit eccentric, and was known for carrying around a doll dressed in imaginative outfits during the height of her fame.
She was sometimes confused for the actress Ruth Darling, who died in a 1918 car crash in San Francisco. She told reporters she married actor Pat Rooney when she was 15 years old; despite their eventual divorce, she was caring for him at the time of his death. She was also married to a Harry Turek of San Francisco.
Pathé SAS is a French major film
production and distribution company, owning a number of cinema chains
through its subsidiary Pathé Cinémas and television networks across
Europe.
It is the name of a network of French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s,
Pathé became the world's largest film equipment and production company, as well as a major producer of phonograph records. In 1908, Pathé invented the newsreel that was shown in cinemas before a feature film.Pathé is the second-oldest operating film company, behind Gaumont, which was established in 1895.
Chapter 8: Double Shooting, Dignified Terms, and Featured Prologs.
Chapter 9: Pioneering Pens: Kitty Kelly, Mae Tinee, and Gertrude Price
Chapter 10: Americanization and Iowanization -- Speed Culture and Leisurely Filmmaking
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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