PAGE VIEWS

WRITING, READING, AND APPRECIATING

FILM HISTORIES:
A Conversation with Eric Smoodin and Jon Lewis
on The American Film History Reader
Regina Longo

Eric Smoodin and Jon Lewis first met on a college campus

as film studies graduate students in 1979. When the opportunity arose to talk to them about their latest collaboration,
I welcomed the chance to learn about the process behind
putting together an anthology that is very likely to become
a staple in college classrooms, and a go-to reference for scholars and cinephiles alike.1
As film and media historians in their own right, it is significant that Lewis and Smoodin have looked toand continue
to look tothe work of their academic peers, as well as the
work of film critics. (Among others, this anthology features
the work of Molly Haskell and Robin Wood.) What emerges
in this carefully curated collection is a sense of the microhistories of American cinema that have been written over the past
forty years. Much of the scholarship presented in The American Film History Reader was made possible by the wealth of
primary source materials that has surfaced since the 1970sin
both public and private archives and collectionsand allowed
scholars to bridge the history/theory divide that was beginning
to entrench itself in the discipline as early as the 1960s.
The American Film History Reader demonstrates that such
boundaries are mutable, allowing for new voices to emerge
and for new histories to be written. The notion that the historical records contain gaps that need to be filled had become
a standard premise of film historiography. It was misleading
to suggest that simply by identifying such gaps, historians
could gain unfettered access to the past. Much as moving images are inherently reproducible, moving image histories can
also multiply: generating, rather than simply filling in,
modes of historical inquiry.
Lewis and Smoodins six categories highlight the key historiographic turns that film and media historians have taken in
Film Quarterly, Vol. 68, Number 2, pp. 7780, ISSN 0015-1386, electronic ISSN 1533-8630.
2014 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please
direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through
the University of California Presss Rights and Permissions website, http://www.
ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/FQ.2014.68.2.76.

response to this gap theory: Industrial Practice, Technology,

Reception, Films and Filmmakers, Censorship and Regulation, and Stardom. They serve as signposts, which further aid
the reader to put the subject of the writing of film histories
into critical perspective. Smoodin and Lewis are quick to confirm this in their Introduction.2 As editors, they have distinctly
articulated their reasons for each and every article and do a
thorough job of situating each selection in both its framework
and the larger field of media historiography. As a conceptual
construct, the organization of the Reader into methodological
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chapters demonstrates the contours of the field, simultaneously

smoothing rough edges and acknowledging the permeability
of these historiographical membranes.
Some of the texts in this book may be familiar to FQ readers, as several of the authors cite scholarship from FQ in their
arguments and others originally appeared in these pages.
Notably, Barry Salts Film Style and Technology in the
Thirties (featured in Part II: Technology) exemplifies Lewis
and Smoodins model of key texts by film historians engaged
in detailed studies of the technological advancements at particular moments in the film industry that linked their informed observations with their analyses of film style.3
These did not comprise merely a form follows function
type of argument, but something more revelatory for the
evolving discipline of film studies. Lewis and Smoodin remind the reader that style matters, not simply in terms of recognizing and appreciating particular films and their aesthetic
triumphs, but equally so in the writing of film histories.
Similarly, Lea Jacobs (Part V: Censorship and Regulation)
and Anna Everett (Part III: Reception) are exemplary for
their ability to examine more complicated networks of commercial film production, distribution, and reception. Such
research models have become increasingly more useful, assisting film historians in moving between their stock-in-trade of
formal, deep textual analysis at the level of individual cultural
productions and more lateral comparative cultural analyses
that can rethink the limits of the networks of production,
across or between regions, nations, and cultures. The case
study structure allows historians to zero in on films as objects,
ideas, historical narratives, and institutional constructs: interrogating questions of ownership, access, and authorship in
their literal and metaphorical senses. These questions had
been asked for some time by historians of art and printed culture, but in the field of moving images there seemed to be a
resistance to engage more directly with these ideas, as if the
appeal of the imagedocumentary or fictionalwere too
strong to be relegated to the background of the analysis.
If there are individuals who cling stubbornly to the notion
that an Ivory Tower still exists in academia, Eric Smoodin
and Jon Lewis are certainly not among them. The publication of The American Film History Reader is a testament to
their belief that there has always been more than one film
history to write, and more than one method to writing it.
And, just as important, it is confirmation of their collaborative approaches to scholarship and pedagogy.
LONGO: This book marks your second collaboration
on an anthology devoted to American film history.
Its been ten years since your first, Looking Past the

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Screen: Case Studies in Film History and Method

(Duke University Press, 2004). Did this project
evolve organically from that first endeavor?

SMOODIN AND LEWIS: The first bookLooking Past the

Screen: Case Studies in Film History and Methodcame out of
a Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) panel we
did focusing on cinema histories that did not consider a film
or body of films as the primary text(s). The original title of
the book, a title we still like a lot, was In the Absence of
Films . . . Case Studies in Film History and Method. It was
apt because the essays in that book focused on documents
or texts or evidence other than the film or films up there
on screen (hence the revised title: Looking Past the Screen).
In 2004 we did not have a sequel in mind, but thinking
about them [the two books] together, we did want to showcase original work by film historians who used the archives,
so to speak, in creative ways in both. At bottom, both books
take folks interested in film history away from the great
films/great directors model. So yes, the new book, Film History Reader, is a logical next step, anthology-wise, in that it
again surveys a range of American film histories and historiographies and organizes the material thematically (as opposed
to chronologically). And it collects work that in our view
approaches American film history in different and illuminating ways.
LONGO: You have both had prolific careers as
academics, historians, editors, authors, andto a
certain degreeas cultural critics. In this anthology,
there is a singular, yet nuanced, voice that emerges
in your introductory essays and in the selection of
materials featured. When and how did your
professional collaborations begin? And how do you
manage to mesh your distinct authorial voices in
such a seamless and productive way?

LEWIS AND SMOODIN: Though it was not exactly a professional collaboration, because we were not professors or publishing writers quite yet, we both began the doctoral
program in Film and Television Studies at UCLA the same
year, in 1979. As is true for a lot of us when we were in graduate school, the excitement we felt came as much from the
cohort of students as from the faculty, and so we were always
talking to each other for us, to colleagues like Richard
deCordova, Lea Jacobs, Steve Ricci, Geoff Gilmore, Fabrice
Ziolkowski, Janet Walker, Frank Tomasulo, Michael
Friend, and Greg Lukowabout scholarship, about film
history, about research methodologies.
One of the really great things about being at UCLA was
that we couldnt help but become aware that film studies had
a compelling history that most people didnt know that

much about. We got to work with and learn from other

students who had started grad school a few years before us,
people like Janet Bergstrom and Michael Renov, or a few
years before that, like Bill Nichols, and of course from
faculty who had founded the graduate program, and so we
couldnt help but develop a sense of the generations and
genealogies of film history, and different and overlapping
methodologies. And then there was the UCLA archive, the
opportunity to screen pristine 35mm prints for our classes
and to do hands-on research on what now seems like pretty
old-school equipment with actual film prints.
With our current volume, were not so much interested in
stating a case for specific methodologies as we were in the
previous collection, but more in figuring out what methodologies have been available and useful over time, and how
different scholars have employed them. If we do have a consistent voice in The American Film History Reader, it probably
comes from a shared curiosity about the history of film studies, the sort of thing that Dana Polan, Lee Grieveson, and
Haidee Wasson write about, and by trying to write from our
experience as teachers as well as scholars. That is, how might
we explain to people, with varying degrees of expertise, precisely how our field has developed?
LONGO: It is encouraging that AFHR takes your
thinking in a new direction, turning the focus back
to the films themselves, while also staying attuned
to historiographic practices that are deeply engaged
with the study of industrial practices, media
technologies, reception studies, auteur theory,
censorship and regulation studies, and stardom
(and fan culture). Quite rightly, you note that instead
of choosing the most canonical texts in each of these
areas, you have chosen texts to demonstrate how
the profession is developing in each of these areas.
Can you explain a bit more about this process of
selection?

LEWIS AND SMOODIN: When youre putting together a collection like this one, the work can be as much bureaucratic and
organizational as it is intellectual. Our publisher gave us a generousbut of course not unlimitedpermissions budget and,
by extension, not unlimited space. So we had to think very
carefully about categories and selections. We had to give up articles and sections that dealt with the American avant-garde,
documentary, and animation, for instance. [We] decided that,
given the number of pages we had to work with, a precise
focus on historiographies of narrative, live-action, more-or-less
major studio produced films would work best. But that really
didnt help the selection process that much. How could we not,
for example, include Tom Gunnings essay on the cinema of

attractions? Its such an important essay. But its been

anthologized so often [that] we finally left it out.
We also wanted students to be aware not only about how
film history has been written but also about the different voices responsible for it. Its far too easy to round up the usual suspects and publish articles by the same bunch of white guys.
Film studies has been somewhat more democratic than other
disciplines, and to reflect that, we wanted to present a diverse
group of historians, who themselves might not always have
been scholars or academics in the sense that we understand
those terms today. In other words, we think it makes sense to
understand US film history in such a way that the work of
Molly Haskell and Miriam Hansen can appear in the same
volume, because of the ways that film history was practiced in
the 1960s and 1970s, and the ways its practiced now.
LONGO: The start of each chapter in AFHR presents a
short introduction, a summation of the
historiographic turn, which it highlights, and a list
of suggested further readings. Your introduction to
the book states that some of the suggested readings
could have just as easily been chosen to represent
the category had the chapters not been limited to
only three articles per chapter. What were the
distinguishing criteria that allowed for the final
choices to be made?

SMOODIN AND LEWIS: The selection process wasnt easy! And

even when, in the introductions and in the suggestions for further reading, we added in citations and recommendations for
follow-up, we know that we still left out work that has proven
to be important and influential . . . essays we admire. We were
limited by the Reader format, by practical things like permissions costs, and by how much of a doorstop book we thought
we should publish. Six chapters with three essays apiece in the
end allowed us to collect some excellent film historical work
and not overwhelm potential readers . . . . Again, we were not
trying to insist upon a canon which would necessitate a doorstop book, but instead . . . to showcase a range of historical research and writing and set the stage for further reading (which
we suggest) and study.
LONGO: The selected and suggested readings
reflected the genealogy of the six historiographic
approaches addressed in this book. Instead of
focusing simply on the beginnings or heyday of a
movement or practice, you demonstrate its staying
power. Can you address the reason for publishing
this anthology now? What do you see as its
importance for the evolving field of film and media
studies?

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LEWIS AND SMOODIN: It is difficult at this stage to talk about

importance, and much as wed like to see this anthology
adopted and discussed in film studies classes in the future,
wed instead like to suggest a couple of overlapping issues
that point to the importance of reading through film history
in the manner indicated in our book. First, film history itself
has a history, and its one that stretches back a long way in the
United States and elsewhere. Second, we always have to
speak of film histories in the plural, rather than just film
history. Theres no one genealogy of cinema. Instead, there
are many, often practiced by the same people and often having lots of things in common with each otherbut sometimes not. Were also among a number of people in the
field who oppose the binary opposition of history and theory.
That binary seemed to be very much in effect, for instance,
when we were in graduate school in the 1970s and 1980s.
Over the last thirty years or so, though, more and more scholars have tried to break down that divide, in order to theorize
film history and historicize film theory. We hope that The
American Film History Reader contributes to that effort.
LONGO: Inevitably, the only negative critique
launched at LPTS may also be launched at AFHR:
the focus of the anthology is (mainly) American.
Undoubtedly, you have anticipated this critique,
so what do you say to those who question the
American-centric focus of your anthology? And,
which of the six chapters do you think might be
most successfully adapted to global media
historiographies?

LEWIS AND SMOODIN: The quick answer here is that were

both primarily American film historians . . . were really
aware of our roles and responsibilities as editors and as curators or presenters of work in this field. We feel comfortable
speaking to and writing about and showcasing this work because were American film historians. American film history
is hardly a narrow field of study and the body of work is considerable. There is room of course for a European Film History Reader ... a Japanese Film History Reader, etc. And we
can imagine such volumes forthcoming from Routledges
Film Reader series.

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LONGO: In another ten years, will there be a third

anthology? Can you imagine now what it might look
like?

SMOODIN AND LEWIS: In ten years, its safe to say, we will

both be retired, perhaps basking on beaches somewhere.
Assuming we decide to put our daiquiris down, then another
volume might make sense. We can imagine similar categories
and a similar historical scope. In just one example, though, of
all of the categories that influence historical writing, we can
only begin to imagine how our understanding of film history
will be affected by all the new technologiesin terms of
production, but also in terms of exhibition, film journalism,
and so many other things connected to cinema.
Then again, in ten years we might not be the best people to
produce that volume. Both of us have a very traditional film
studies training, and so it might be best for younger scholars
to update the history of the field. Were not even sure that, in
ten years, film will be the best descriptive word to use in the
title of a volume like this one. We hope, though, that our
book, along with other recent and terrific historiographic
work, can serve as something of a model for asking questions
and refining methodologies. We certainly dont mean this to
be the last word on film history. Instead, its an invitation for
film scholars to imagine multiple histories and different practices, and to apply them to different modes of production and
varied nationaland transnationalsettings.
BOOK DATA:
The American Film History Reader New York, NY: Routledge, 2015. $53.95
paper, $135.00 hardback, 394 pages, illustrations.
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415706889/
http://www.filmquarterly.org/category/pageviews/

Notes
1. Full disclosure: I was a student of Professor Smoodin on the
UC Berkeley campus as an undergraduate and therefore have
a somewhat special interest in following his pedagogical interventions.
2. Note that FQ readers can view and download their Introduction in its entirety on filmquarterly.orgs Page Views section.
3. See Barry Salt, Film Style and Technology in the Thirties,
Film Quarterly 30, no. 1 (Autumn 1976): 1932.