2023
Maverick Movies: New Line Cinema and the Transformation of American Film (2023)
Daniel Herbert
Maverick Movies tells the improbable story of New Line Cinema, a company that cut a remarkable path through the American film industry and movie culture. Founded in 1967 as an art film distributor, New Line made a small fortune running John Waters's Pink Flamingos at midnight screenings in the 1970s and found reliable returns with the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise in the 1980s. By 2001, the company competed with the major Hollywood studios and reached global box office success with the Lord of the Rings franchise. Blurring boundaries...
See MoreOur Country/Whose Country? Early Westerns and Travel Films as Stories of Settler Colonialism (2023)
Richard Abel
The concept of settler colonialism offers an invaluable lens to reframe early westerns and travel films as re-enactments of this country’s repressed past. In short, these films stage a remarkable vision of white settlers’ westward expansion that reveals a transformation in what “American Progress” came to mean. Two interconnected pathways structure this book. The primary path links five chapters devoted to early westerns from the early 1900s to the late 1910s. A crucial shift occurs between the third and fourth chapters, coinciding with the outbreak of the Great War....
See More2022
Méliès Boots: Footwear and Film Manufacturing in Second Industrial Revolution Paris (2022)
Matthew Solomon
Before he became an influential cinematic innovator, Georges Méliès (1861–1938) was a maker of deluxe French footwear, an illusionist, and a caricaturist. Proceeding from these beginnings, Méliès Boots traces how the full trajectory of Georges Méliès’ career during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, along with the larger cultural and historical contexts in which Méliès operated, shaped his cinematic oeuvre. Solomon examines Méliès’ unpublished drawings and published caricatures, the role of laughter in his magic theater productions, and the constituent elements of what...
See MoreHam-Let: A Shakespearean Mash-up (2022)
Jim Burnstein and Garrett Schiff
Geared toward middle grade readers, Ham-let is a fun and endearing graphic novel reimagining of a classic Shakespearean tale. This satirical story stars a cast of anthropomorphic animals based on characters from Shakespeare’s greatest plays.
The eponymous Pig Prince himself returns home from college to find that his uncle Claude betrayed and murdered his father to seize the throne! But this familiar fable veers into the zany and adventurous when Ham-let calls upon his best friend Horatio and a troupe of rowdy, self-centered actors to aid him in halting his uncle’s evil ...
2021
American Exile (2021)
John Valadez - Carleen L. Hsu
Two brothers, Manuel and Valente Valenzuela, both volunteered and fought in Vietnam. Fifty years later, they are among thousands of U.S. military veterans, many with distinguished records, who are being deported. The brothers reluctantly put their uniforms on for one last mission; to bring deported veterans and their families back home. It's a quixotic quest that leaves one brother exiled in a foreign country, while the other will go all the way to the White House.
The film received a primetime national broadcast on PBS on November ...
See MoreMovie Mavens (2021)
Richard Abel
Richard Abel's anthology Movie Mavens: US Newspaper Women Take on the Movies 1914 - 1923 reveals women's essential contribution to the creation of American Film Culture. During the early era of cinema, moviegoers turned to women editors and writers for the latest on everyone’s favorite stars, films, and filmmakers. Richard Abel returns these women to film history with an anthology of reviews, articles, and other works. Abel supplements the...
See MoreBrushed in Light: Calligraphy in East Asian Cinema
Markus Nornes
Drawing on a millennia of calligraphy theory and history, Brushed in Light examines how the brushed word appears in films and in film cultures of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and PRC cinemas. This includes silent era intertitles, subtitles, title frames, letters, graffiti, end titles, and props. Markus Nornes also looks at the role of calligraphy in film culture at large, from gifts to correspondence to advertising. The book begins with a historical dimension, tracking how calligraphy is initially used in early cinema and how it is continually rearticulated by transforming...
See MoreLibrary of Congress National Book Festival: Open a Book; Open the World (2021)
Oliver Thornton
Winner of the 2021 Broadcast Excellence Award from the MAB (Michigan Association of Broadcasters) in the Cultural Programming category
Oliver Thornton worked in LA during the summer of 2021 to produce “Open a Book; Open the World: The Library of Congress National Book Festival,” hosted by LeVar Burton.
The festival premiered on Sunday, Sept.12, at 6:00 p.m. on Detroit Public TV (PBS) and featured 20 of the nation’s leading literary voices discussing their newest books and speaking to the festival theme.
"Find a New City 1" and "Find a New City 2" (2021)
Christopher McNamara
Christopher McNamara recently installed two pieces, "Find a New City 1" and "Find a New City 2," in the exhibit "Conversations: Windsor Essex Triennial of Contemporary Art." McNamara’s recent projects have included stereoscopic video works with long takes of cities and towns that are close to his heart. Along the way, he has also been constructing multi-media dioramas and sound pieces that contemplate the city as a complicated site. For McNamara, it begins with a romantic notion of what the city promises while acknowledging that the city continues...
See More2020
Motor City Movie Culture 1916-1925 (2020)
Richard Abel
Motor City Movie Culture, 1916-1925 is a broad textured look at Hollywood coming of age in a city with a burgeoning population and complex demographics. Richard Abel investigates the role of local Detroit organizations in producing, distributing, exhibiting, and publicizing films in an effort to make moviegoing part of everyday life. Tapping a wealth of primary sources material—from newspapers, spatiotemporal maps, and city directories to rare trade journals, theater programs, and local newsreels—Abel shows how entrepreneurs worked to lure moviegoers from Detroit’s diverse ethnic...
See MoreFilm Reboots (2020)
Daniel Herbert, Constantine Verevis
Bringing together the latest developments in the study of serial formatting practices – remakes, sequels, series – Film Reboots (co-editors Daniel Herbert and Constantine Verevis, Edinburgh University Press, 2020) is the first edited collection to specifically focus on the new millennial phenomenon of rebooting. Through a set of vibrant case studies, this collection investigates rebooting as a practice that seeks to remake an entire film series or franchise, with ambitions that are at once respectful and revisionary. Examining such notable examples as Batman, Ghostbusters
See MoreLibrary of Congress National Book Festival: Celebrating American Ingenuity (2020)
Oliver Thornton
In this powerful and inspiring program produced by FTVM’s own Oliver Thornton, over two dozen of American Literature’s most creative minds join book lovers across the country to celebrate American ingenuity at a time when we need it most -- discussing what it means to them, how it fires their imaginations and why books are so important to us, now more than ever.
Media Industry Studies (Short Introductions)
Daniel Herbert, Amanda Lotz, Aswin Punathambekar
The study of media industries has become a thriving subfield of media studies. It already comprises a diverse intellectual history, a range of fascinating questions and topics, and many theoretical and methodological frameworks. Media Industry Studies provides the roadmap to this vibrant area of study. Blending a comprehensive overview of foundational literature with an examination of the varied scales and sites media industry studies have considered, the book explores connections among research questions, topics, and methodologies. It includes examples from many media industries - film...
See MoreMaking School Matter - University Liggett School and the Academic Research Program (2020)
Oliver Thornton
Making School Matter - University Liggett School and the Academic Research Program premiered at 7:30 p.m., Monday, January 27, 2020, on Detroit Public Television.
The film is the culmination of a four-year documentary project that followed four students attending University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan. All high school-aged students at University Liggett School participate in the Academic Research Program, a four-year curriculum that takes a subject they are passionate about and turns it into an in-depth research project that teaches them the skills they...
See MoreMotor City Movie Culture 1916-1925 (2020)
Richard Abel
Motor City Movie Culture, 1916-1925 is a broad textured look at Hollywood coming of age in a city with a burgeoning population and complex demographics. Richard Abel investigates the role of local Detroit organizations in producing, distributing, exhibiting, and publicizing films in an effort to make moviegoing part of everyday life. Tapping a wealth of primary sources material—from newspapers, spatiotemporal maps, and city directories to rare trade journals, theater programs, and local newsreels—Abel shows how entrepreneurs worked to lure moviegoers from Detroit’s diverse ethnic...
See More2019
Point of Sale: Analyzing Media Retail (2019)
Daniel Herbert and Derek Johnson (Eds.)
Point of Sale offers the first significant attempt to center media retail as a vital component in the study of popular culture. It brings together fifteen essays by top media scholars with their fingers on the pulse of both the changes that foreground retail in a digital age and the history that has made retail a fundamental part of the culture industries. The book reveals why retail matters as a site of transactional significance to industries as well as a crucial locus of meaning and interactional participation for consumers. In addition to examining how industries ...
See MoreLast Letters: The Prison Correspondence, 1944-45 Freya and Helmuth von Moltke
edited by Helmuth Caspar von Moltke, Dorothea von Moltke, and Johannes von Moltke
Tegel prison, Berlin, in the fall of 1944. Helmuth James von Moltke is awaiting trial for his leading role in the Kreisau Circle, one of the most important German resistance groups against the Nazis. By a near miracle, the prison chaplain at Tegel is Harald Poelchau, a friend and coconspirator of Helmuth and his wife, Freya. From Helmuth’s arrival at Tegel in late September 1944 until the day of his execution by the Nazis on January 23, 1945, Poelchau would carry Helmuth’s and Freya’s letters in and out of prison daily, risking his own life. Freya would safeguard these letters for the rest of...
See MoreOrchestra Hall - A Centennial Celebration
Oliver Thornton
Oliver Thornton's new documentary, Orchestra Hall – A Centennial Celebration premiered on Detroit Public Television on Wednesday, October 23, 2019. The series will tell the story of Orchestra Hall across six 7-8-minute “webisodes” that will be distributed every week across DPTV’s broadcast and social media platforms to coincide with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s centennial efforts. This series will culminate in a 90-minute pledge event to air on Detroit Public Television December 2, 2019.
The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leardership in 1920s America (2019)
Giorgio Bertellini
In the post–World War I American climate of isolationism, nativism, democratic expansion of civic rights, and consumerism, Italian-born star Rodolfo Valentino and Italy’s dictator Benito Mussolini became surprising paragons of authoritarian male power and mass appeal. Drawing on extensive archival research in the United States and Italy, Giorgio Bertellini’s work shows how their popularity, both political and erotic, largely depended on the efforts of public opinion managers, including publicists, journalists, and even ambassadors. Beyond the democratic celebrations of the Jazz Age, the...
See MoreTags: Giorgio Bertellini , Department of Film, Television, and Media , Faculty
Mackinac– Our Famous Island
Oliver Thornton
In a new documentary, Mackinac – Our Famous Island, Detroit Public TV and Mackinac State Historic Parks takes viewers along its many shores and trails to experience the natural beauty of the island, visit landmarks that reveal its earliest history and introduce the people who still work to preserve this special place. There is far more to this sacred island than horses and fudge, and DPTV cameras capture the landscape and beauty while connecting us to the diverse communities and people who have been stewards of Mackinac Island throughout its history.
2018
Appified: Culture in the Age of Apps
Sarah Murray and Jeremy Wade Morris, Eds.
Snapchat. WhatsApp. Ashley Madison. Fitbit. Tinder. Periscope. How do we make sense of how apps like these-and thousands of others-have embedded themselves into our daily routines, permeating the background of ordinary life and standing at-the-ready to be used on our smartphones and tablets? When we look at any single app, it's hard to imagine how such a small piece of software could be particularly notable. But if we look at a collection of them, we see a bigger picture that reveals how the quotidian activities apps encompass are far from banal: connecting with friends (and strangers and enemies...
See MoreTags: Sarah Murray , Department of Film, Television, and Media , Faculty
Film Remakes and Franchises (2018)
Daniel Herbert
Contemporary media seems incredibly unoriginal, as Hollywood produces an endless flood of remakes, sequels, reboots, and franchises. We watch as the same stories, characters, and images appear again and again in different films, on new platforms, and as toys and other merchandise. Are these works simply crass commercial products, utterly devoid of creativity, or do they offer filmmakers a unique opportunity to reimagine iconic characters and modern myths?
Film Remakes and Franchises examines how remakes and sequels have been central to the film industry from its very inception...
Tags: Department of Film, Television, and Media , Daniel Herbert , Faculty
2017
Thaw of the Dead (2017)
David Marek
A story of survival that questions the price of a group’s humanity, where the hauntingly beautiful landscape is as dangerous as the roaming corpses it hides. Within this apocalyptic world, a waning group of survivors have found refuge in an abandoned dam. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and the only way to survive the harsh winter was to make painful choices and live by the skin of their teeth. Now, starved and torn, the group looks to the coming spring with added opportunity to search nearby towns for supplies … but at the same time, the resurgence of the living dead, released...
See MoreTags: Department of Film, Television, and Media , Faculty , David Marek
An Uncommon Education: Celebrating 200 Years of the U-M (2017)
Oliver Thornton
An Uncommon Education – Celebrating 200 Years of the University of Michigan is a short-form documentary series to air on Detroit Public Television (DPTV) throughout 2017 as part of a multimedia effort of recognize 200 years of the University’s role as an educator and institution in the state, nation, and world.
Written and produced by Oliver Thornton (assisted by Associate Producer Matthew Stinson, SAC '10 and Carly Keyes, SAC '16), this series is spread over ten broadcast and web vignettes; each vignette will attempt to track the evolution of how the institution ignited the sparks...
See MoreInside Grand Hotel (2017)
Oliver Thornton
Oliver Thornton's documentary Inside Grand Hotel premiered on March 2, 2017, on Detroit Public T.V. The film explores some of the Grand Hotel’s most iconic spaces - including rooms, suites, the kitchen, and other staff areas - not normally experienced by the masses. Additionally, it documents the hotel's unique business story, revealing the individuals behind the scenes who create the magic of Grand Hotel’s experience and disclosing the day-to-day operations behind this island tourist destination.
Inside Grand Hotel worked with Detroit Public Television...
See More2016
The Curious Humanist (2016)
Johannes von Moltke
During the Weimar Republic, Siegfried Kracauer established himself as a trenchant theorist of film, culture, and modernity, and he is now considered one of the key thinkers of the twentieth century. When he arrived in Manhattan aboard a crowded refugee ship in 1941, however, he was virtually unknown in the United States and had yet to write his best-known books, From Caligari to Hitler and Theory of Film. Johannes von Moltke details the intricate ways in which the American intellectual and political context shaped Kracauer’s seminal contributions to film studies and shows...
See More
Irreplaceables: Why Teachers Matter Most (2016)
David Marek
Marek's film is a 70-minute documentary entitled Irreplaceables: Why Teachers Matter Most was shot in collaboration with over a half dozen public schools in and around Detroit.
Schools and districts around the nation serving at-risk students have been on a fast track trying to fix ongoing academic failures. Numerous changes to policy, testing requirements, standards, curricula, and school models have come and gone, but the achievement gap still looms large -- and with students and teachers on test-overload, there are still no great gains to show for it. Meanwhile, the research ...
See MorePioneer Family - On Van Hoosen Farm (2016)
Oliver Thornton
Thornton's documentary, Pioneer Family - On Van Hoosen Farm, recently premièred at the Rochester Hills Emagine Theater; its broadcast première occurred on December 6, 2016, on Detroit Public Television at 8:00 p.m. On Van Hoosen Farm explores how five generations of Taylors and Van Hoosens raised their families and worked the land: "There are countless stories of the families who established the communities we live in today, but seldom is there a story as unique, incredible and engaging as the story of Van Hoosen Farm in Rochester Hills. Settled among ...
See More