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'the whole english stage to be seen for sixpence': theatrical actors and acting styles in british cinema, 1908-1918
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'the whole english stage to be seen for sixpence': theatrical actors and acting styles in british cinema, 1908-1918
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Dissertation
'the whole english stage to be seen for sixpence': theatrical actors and acting styles in british cinema, 1908-1918
2000
Overview
This thesis introduces the notion that, contrary to received wisdom, much British film production during the 1910s was commercially successful in its home market, and constituted a popular national cinema. It specifically forwards the theory that the prominence of theatrical actors and theatrical performance styles played an important role in the revitalisation of British cinema in this period, to the degree that their influence helped to stimulate a significantly increased amount of new production activity, critical kudos and audience appeal. As well as charting the ways in which established theatrical performers were employed by British manufacturing concerns during this period, it examines various attempts at creating a native cinematic star system and shows how these were partly determined by particular theatrical legacies, and thus foregrounded distinctive and often contradictory qualities by comparison with similar promotional strategies used by American companies. Close textual analysis of surviving films from the period reveals that a gestural style of acting derived from contemporary theatrical practice was both formally more complex and historically more resilient than most previous discussions of early screen performance have tended to suggest. The thesis acknowledges that some of these efforts to transpose prestigious theatrical traditions to the cinema in the 1910s were principally concerned to forge a vicarious association with cultural hereditaments which already had a privileged status within accepted definitions of the national heritage. In such cases, their energies were focused upon the creation of a recognisably national cinematic product aimed at educated middle class patrons. However, it also concludes that many of these vehicles for actors predominantly associated with the theatre were just as frequently selected and adapted to successfully address lower-middle- and working-class audience constituencies during this formative period of film history.
Publisher
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
Subject
