1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910455677303321

Autore

Armatage Kay

Titolo

The girl from God's country : Nell Shipman and the silent cinema / / Kay Armatage

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, Ontario ; ; Buffalo, New York ; ; London, England : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2003

©2003

ISBN

1-282-03692-0

9786612036927

1-4426-8137-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (437 p.)

Collana

Heritage

Disciplina

791.43/023/092

Soggetti

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Entertainment & Performing Arts

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Women Directors of the Silent Era: The Scholarship -- 2. Women with Megaphones -- 3. Back to God's Country -- 4. Something New -- 5. The Girl from God's Country -- 6. The Grub-Stake -- 7. Bits and Pieces -- 8. Tissue-Paper Tower -- 9. Naked on the Palisades -- Appendix A. Biographical Timeline -- Appendix B. Known Nell Shipman Filmography -- Notes -- Illustration Credits -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In The Girl from God's Country, Kay Armatage reintroduces film studies scholars to Nell Shipman, a pioneer in both Canadian and American film, and one of proportionately numerous women from Hollywood's silent era who wrote, directed, produced, and acted in motion pictures. Born and raised in British Columbia, Shipman became a contract actress for Vitagraph Studios, starring in God's Country and the Woman (1915) and Back to God's Country (1919), among other films. These action-packed adventure melodramas, in which the heroine is called upon to rescue her husband and defeat the villain, were immensely successful. Later, Shipman started up her own production company to make films centred on her screen persona, 'the girl from God?s country.' By the mid



1920s, however, the formation of the large Hollywood studios and vertical integration closed down the independents, Shipman among them. Nevertheless, she continued writing until her death in 1970.Through the use of social history, feminist film theory, and biography, Armatage creates a portrait of a woman film pioneer. Using Shipman's working life as a window to the profession, Armatage explores the position of women in modernism, the developing film industry, and cinematic practice of the 1920s. The Girl from God's Country also contextualizes Shipman's work within the development of Hollywood as a locus of artistic production and in relation to women filmmakers from Europe, Australia, Russia and the United States. Armatage brings Shipman back to life in this important book.