This study examines the film collection and exhibition programs of American art museums. Patterns of inclusion and development have been identified in order to determine the present and potential contribution of the art museum to film collection, exhibition and study in this country. Using the "grounded theory" method advocated by Glaser and Strauss, the research was divided into three stages. The first stage consisted of a survey of American art museums. Museum personnel were asked if their institutions included film as part of overall programming. If they replied affirmatively, they were asked to answer further questions designed to define the nature and scope of the film programs. During stage two, the survey response was analyzed on the interactive computer using software developed by Paul Blakely of California State University, Los Angeles. Results of the initial bi-variate analysis indicated that the following descriptive museum categories could be considered factors in a museum's decision to include film in its programming: (1) dominant time period of collection; (2) dominant geographic origins of collection; (3) type of museum; (4) governing authority; (5) population of the community in which the museum is located. Stage three consisted of interviews with personnel from ten art museums located across the United States that reflected aspects of the above variables. Interviews were guided by hypotheses developed from the information gathered from the museum survey, preliminary interviews with museum personnel and readings in museum history. It became apparent during the research that the art museum is an institution highly suitable for the establishment and development of film collection and exhibition programs. Many such programs now exist. A few of these programs are national in scope. Many are oriented towards servicing the needs of their geographic region or local community. Some programs have been developed to utilize film as a resource to teach about art and artists, others collect and/or exhibit film for its value as art. Many factors are operant in the decision to establish a film program. The general nature and chartered purpose of the individual museum is important. General attitudes towards film affect the decision. Specific community support and the contributions of individuals are crucial. Once a program is established, its growth and development are dependent on the needs and purposes of the parent museum and the interest and support of its audience. Also operant are the interests and concerns of the individuals running the film program. Another factor is the amount and kind of exposure to film that is provided by other institutions in the community. The general trends and tendencies of the particular era in which a program is established also have an effect on its development. These various factors coalesce in the establishment and development of film programs in art museums in the United States. This study reaches the following conclusions: (1) Art museum film programs contribute significantly to film exhibition in the United States. (2) Only a few art museums have developed into major film archives. Most of the film acquisition programs in art museums are geared to the development of "working collections" to support exhibition. (3) Film study on an advanced level is supported by only a few museums. (4) Finally, museum film programs are fairly recent phenomena and in the elementary stages of development. Further growth will depend on the ability of individual programs to unite in a cooperative effort to share information and resources in the pursuit of mutually significant goals.

This dissertation investigates the evolving market structure of the American motion picture industry between 1963 and 1980. Essentially, the analysis begins with the Paramount litigation and concentrates its focus on domestic exhibition, tracing its changing relationship to the rest of the system that is the American film business. Production, distribution and foreign exhibition, along with America's theatre owners, are all seen as forming their own separate tiers, exhibiting needs and patterns of business behavior distinct from one another. Simultaneously, these separate tiers are also conceptualized as being cogs that coordinate in an even larger system, the American motion picture industry. This within and between tier unit of analysis, then, serves as the basis on which this inquiry is organized. Briefly, the Paramount Decision is analyzed as having fragmented the tier of domestic exhibition, while leaving the power and status of both American production and distribution essentially intact. Because of slow compliance with the consent decrees, the true effects of the Paramount Decision on the overall structure of the American film business were not substantially felt until 1957. Following six successive years of industry-wide losses, the market finally started to bottom-out in 1962. Along with bottoming-out, a new and modern structure for the American motion picture industry in general, and domestic exhibition in particular, began to take hold during 1962-1963. Traditionally, film industry historians have detailed two specific points, since 1957, where the economy of the American film industry plummeted to critical lows, 1962-1963 and 1968-1972. This study identifies 1962-1963 as the period when domestic exhibition stabilized and began evolving into the structural configuration it displays today. The latter years are when the same process began for America's major distributors. This dissertation also examines the relationship between domestic exhibition and America's major distributors. Most times this relationship is an adversarial one, as the reallocation of profits and losses between the two tiers fluctuates sharply during the 1960s and 1970s. Within tier friction is also evident between domestic theatre owners themselves, as each exhibitor scrambles for parity in a climate of competition, not cooperation. What results is a market dominated by size and influence, where the industry is controlled by the major distributors, while the tier of exhibition is overshadowed by a handful of major theatre circuits. The major American film distributors have formed a mature oligopoly that has stood in one form or another since the 1930s. Today, this same patterning is evident in the tier of exhibition as well. The four major theatre circuits, General Cinema, United Artists Theatres, Plitt and American Multi-Cinema, along with a dozen or so mini-major theatre chains have developed a hold on the domestic retailing of movies comparable to the grip exhibited by their counterparts in distribution. This oligopolistic posturing, combined with the rapid development of subscription television, video-cassettes and video-discs, all contribute to altering what movie-going means to Americans today. This dissertation ends with some thoughts about the future of domestic exhibition in the 1980s, and how technological as well as economic contingencies continue to mold the structure of the American film business, expanding its scope into television and video while adding additional tiers to the motion picture industry's original four: production, distribution, domestic and foreign exhibition.

Titicut Follies, a documentary made at Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Bridgewater by Frederick Wiseman and John Marshall, is the only American film whose use has court-approved restrictions for reasons other than obscenity. A decree of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts limits its exhibition to individuals in various professional categories. This study traces how--and speculates on why--Titicut Follies came to occupy this sui generis status and, in doing so, comments on the general conundrum of conflicting rights among documentary filmmakers, subjects, and audiences. This study expands the criticism of Wiseman's work through a rhetorical analysis of his first film, develops the case study as a method of doing documentary film history, examines direct cinema as a film form with particular ethical burdens, and adds a full review of a unique legal decision to film censorship history. Each chapter, although chronological, is organized around a central dilemma. No chapter involves ethical dilemmas as named topic; every chapter concerns ethical problems. Chapter Two deals with the procedural dilemmas that confronted the non-sponsored filmmaker in 1965-66. The "politics of asking" and the myth of informed consent are analyzed. Chapter Three focuses on the construction of the film in 1966-67 and concentrates on the artistic dilemmas that result from working in the essentially paradoxical form of "reality fiction." Legal dilemmas are the central topics of Chapter Four, which emphasizes the especially active 1967-69 period, but also covers appeals for a review of Commonwealth v. Wiseman. Also discussed is the rush to judgment by legislature, press, and other publics during 1967-69. Chapter Five concerns the bureaucratic dilemmas of restrictive exhibition that have existed since 1969. The last chapter reviews the documentary dilemmas discussed and speculates on their inevitability. To understand the biography of Titicut Follies, one must understand the Zeitgeist of late 1960s America and, therefore, a chronology has been constructed. Included as "background" are events that significantly contributed to the (dis)spirit of the time and key events in the lives of major participants in the controversy. All "foreground" entries relate directly to the career of the film itself.

This study is an examination of structural principles, character archetypes and important cycles in contemporary film satire. The comic theories of Sigmund Freud and Henri Bergson are utilized to establish a theoretical foundation for interpreting comic films. Particular attention is placed on the role of displaced heroic figures and protagonists in affecting satiric social commentary. Character archetypes under consideration include adolescent rebels, aliens, and young upwardly-mobile urban dwellers. Primary discussions are limited to exemplary English language films produced between 1967 and 1988. The study concludes that a new and important film cycle has become dominant in the 1980s, and that this film cycle has yielded a new comic genre. It is proposed and argued that this new genre, labeled the "culture-clash comedy," is a reflection of both localized and international concerns over disintegrating traditional cultural identities.

Decentralization--that situation where expansion of a city's periphery is more rapid than growth of the center city's population--is credited with the relocation of business activities located across the urban landscape over the twentieth century. It is the contention of this study that the same phenomenon has also had a strong influence on cinema location. This analysis examines the evolution of motion picture theater location in selected United States urban areas with regard to four variables recognized as indicative of population decentralization--city size, city age, regional location, and retail activity--during four time periods--1910, 1930, 1960 and 1980. Cities examined were Albuquerque, New Mexico; Boston, Massachusetts; Hartford, Connecticut; Phoenix, Arizona; Providence, Rhode Island; San Diego, California; and Akron, Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio. Pearson's Correlation Coefficients were computed to assess relationships between the independent variables size, age, region and retailing, and the dependent variable, cinema location. A large number of statistically significant (P = .05) correlations were found for three--size, age and retailing. Only region seems to have been infrequently related with theaters in the test cities. What the study shows is that motion picture theaters, generally, have not escaped the tendency toward decentralization. Further, suburbanization of film theaters appears most pronounced in larger and older frostbelt cities, except in 1980, when many younger (often sunbelt) communities displayed patterns characteristic of older ones. By 1980, movie theaters commonly were found between 3 and 15 miles from the principal city center. The exact distribution varied considerably by urban area, however. Finally, retail activity of CBD, city and SMSA seem to have had a marked relationship with city and downtown cinema locations, mostly in 1960 and to a degree in 1980. Of all nine cities studied, only Boston showed renewed promise for downtown theater location in 1980, possibly the result of historical and regional differences Boston enjoys over the others. This suggests that as cities grow larger and older, their downtowns may again be revived as centers for social and cultural activity. This may also mean the revitalization of the downtown as an attractive location for film exhibition.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Also available in print.

Thesis (MFA)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2008. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Theo Lipfert. God's Army is a DVD accompanying the thesis. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 20-22).

Thesis (M.A.)--San Jose State University, 2006. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-81).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Southern California, 1971. / Typescript. Filmography: leaves 247-301. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: leaves 302-314.