Everyday Movies - Portable Film Projectors and the Transformation of American Culture

Everyday Movies documents the twentieth-century rise of portable film projectors. It demonstrates that since World War II, the vast majority of movie-watching did not happen in the glow of the large screen but rather took place alongside the glitches, distortions, and clickety-clack of small machines that transformed home, classroom, museum, community, government, industrial, and military venues into sites of moving-image display. Reorienting the history of cinema away from the magic of the movie theater, Haidee Wasson illustrates the remarkable persistence and proliferation of devices that fundamentally rejected the sleek, highly professionalized film show. She foregrounds instead another kind of apparatus, one that was accessible, affordable, adaptable, easy to use, and crucially, programmable. Revealing rich archival discoveries, this book charts a compelling and original history of film that brings to light new technologies and diverse forms of media engagement that continue to shape contemporary life.

About the author

Haidee Wasson is Professor of Film and Media at Concordia University, Montreal. She is author of the award-winning Museum Movies and coeditor of several books, including Useful Cinema and Cinema's Military Industrial Complex.

Product details

• Authors: Haidee Wasson, Wasson Haidee
• Publisher: University Of California Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 10.11.2020
• EAN: 9780520331686
• ISBN: 978-0-520-33168-6
• No. of pages: 288
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; Social sciences, law, business > Media, communication > Media science; Media Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects, TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Social Aspects, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / History & Criticism, Impact of science & technology on society, Impact of science and technology on society, Film Theory & Criticism, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Technology Studies, Film history, theory or criticism