From the kinetoscope, used by one viewer at a time, to the lavish movie palaces of Hollywood's golden era, the experience of watching films has varied enormously across film. Exhibition, The Film Reader traces the emergence of a culture of moviegoing, exploring the range of venues in which films have been shown and following the fluctuating status of film and the continuning struggle over audiences.
Part I - Where the movies were: the nickelodeon theatre 1905-1914 - building an audience for the movies, Russell Merritt; another audience - black movie-going from 1907-1916, Gregory Waller; nickelodeon nomenclature - the urban picture palaces, Kathryn Helgesen Fuller; the movie palace and the theatrical sources of its architectural style, Charlotte Herzog; discourses on art house in the 1950s, Barbara Wilinsky; the K-Mart audience at the mall movies, William Paul. Part 2 - The business of exhibition: the rise of national theatre chains - Balaban and Katz postscript, Douglas Gregory; the relationship between motion picture distribution and exhibition - an analysis of the effects of anti-blind bidding legislation, Suzanne I. Schiller; where the drive-in fits into the movie industry, Anthony Downs; the evolution of the motion picture theatre business in the 1980s, Thomas Guback. Part 3 - The meanings of the exhibition site, Thomas Guback; an acre of seats in a garden of dreams - the stage moves to the screen, Ben M. Hall; the "theatre man" and "the girl in the box office", Ina Rae Hark; the multiplex - the modern American motion picture theatre as message, Gary Edgerton, film and society - public rituals and private space, Dudley Andrew; spectatorial bibliography, Anne Friedberg.
