LEADER 04683oam 2200529 450 001 9910820363203321 005 20221010173901.0 010 $a0-231-50851-4 024 7 $a10.7312/dech13376 035 $a(OCoLC)643556471 035 $a(MiFhGG)GVRL1AFT 035 $a(EXLCZ)991000000000457755 100 $a20041007d2005 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurun|---uuuua 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aHollywood and the culture elite $ehow the movies became American /$fPeter Decherney 210 $aNew York $cColumbia University Press$dc2005 210 1$aNew York, N.Y. :$cColumbia University Press,$d2005. 215 $a1 online resource (x, 269 pages) $cillustrations 225 1 $aFilm and culture 300 $aDescription based upon print version of record. 311 0 $a0-231-13377-4 311 0 $a0-231-13376-6 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [213]-251) and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tAcknowledgments --$t1. Vachel Lindsay and the Universal Film Museum --$t2. Overlapping Publics: Hollywood and Columbia University, 1915 --$t3. Mandarins and Marxists: Harvard and the Rise of Film Experts --$t4. Iris Barry, Hollywood Imperialism, and the Gender of the Nation --$t5. The Museum of Modern Art and the Roots of the Cultural Cold War --$t6. The Politics of Patronage: How the NEA (Accidentally) Created American Avant-Garde Film --$tConclusion: The Transformation of the Studio System --$tNotes --$tIndex 330 $aAs Americans flocked to the movies during the first part of the twentieth century, the guardians of culture grew worried about their diminishing influence on American art, education, and American identity itself. Meanwhile, Hollywood studio heads were eager to stabilize their industry, solidify their place in mainstream society, and expand their new but tenuous hold on American popular culture. Peter Decherney explores how these needs coalesced and led to the development of a symbiotic relationship between the film industry and America's stewards of high culture. Formed during Hollywood's Golden Age (1915-1960), this unlikely partnership ultimately insured prominent places in American culture for both the movie industry and elite cultural institutions. It redefined Hollywood as an ideal American industry; it made movies an art form instead of simply entertainment for the masses; and it made moviegoing a vital civic institution. For their part, museums and universities used films to maintain their position as quintessential American institutions. As the book delves into the ties between Hollywood bigwigs and various cultural leaders, an intriguing cast of characters emerges, including the poet Vachel Lindsay, film producers Adolph Zukor and Joseph Kennedy, Hollywood flak and censor extraordinaire Will Hays, and philanthropist turned politician Nelson Rockefeller. Decherney considers how Columbia University's film studies program helped integrate Jewish students into American culture while also professionalizing screenwriting. He examines MoMA's career-savvy film curator Iris Barry, a British feminist once dedicated to stemming the tide of U.S. cultural imperialism, who ultimately worked with Hollywood and the U.S. government to fight fascism and communism and promote American values abroad. Other chapters explore Vachel Lindsay's progressive vision of movies as reinvigorating the public sphere through film libraries and museums; the promotion of movie connoisseurship at Harvard and other universities; and how the heir of a railroad magnate bankrolled the American avant-garde film movement. Amid ethnic diversity, the rise of mass entertainment, world war, and the global spread of American culture, Hollywood and cultural institutions worked together to insure their own survival and profitability and to provide a coherent, though shifting, American identity. 410 0$aFilm and culture. 606 $aMotion picture industry$zUnited States$xHistory 606 $aMotion pictures$zUnited States$xHistory 606 $aMotion pictures$xSocial aspects$zUnited States 606 $aCulture in motion pictures 607 $aUnited States$xSocial life and customs$y20th century 615 0$aMotion picture industry$xHistory. 615 0$aMotion pictures$xHistory. 615 0$aMotion pictures$xSocial aspects 615 0$aCulture in motion pictures. 676 $a384/.8/0973 700 $aDecherney$b Peter$0776539 801 0$bMiFhGG 801 1$bMiFhGG 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910820363203321 996 $aHollywood and the culture elite$91681283 997 $aUNINA