Overview
Since the mid-eighties, more audiences have been watching Hollywood movies at home than at movie theaters, yet little is known about just how viewers experience film outside of the multiplex. This is the first full-length study of how contemporary entertainment technologies and media—from cable television and VHS to DVD and the Internet—shape our encounters with the movies and affect the aesthetic, cultural, and ideological definitions of cinema. Barbara Klinger explores topics such as home theater, film collecting, classic Hollywood movie reruns, repeat viewings, and
Internet film parodies, providing a multifaceted view of the presentation and reception of films in U.S. households. Balancing industry history with theoretical and cultural analysis, she finds that today cinema's powerful social presence cannot be fully grasped without considering its prolific recycling in post-theatrical venues—especially the home.
Synopsis
"Barbara Klinger provides a detailed and insightful glimpse into the major place we watch movies today: the home! Connecting discourses, technologies, and consumer behavior, she writes a superb examination of the places, means, and drive for personal control of our visual and aural pleasures, changing our gaze from the multiplex screen to our own living spaces. A crucial contribution to contemporary studies in film, television, and new media! "—Janet Staiger, author of Media Reception Studies