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This dissertation addresses the breakthrough of the multi-reel feature film in the United States, and the significance of this process within the wider context of the American film industry and culture in the 1910s. The purpose is to provide a new, and more comprehensive analytical framing of the topic, and to enhance our understanding of how a new central commodity, i.e. the multi-reel feature film, changed the conditions for film exhibition and reception. The introduction links the breakthrough of the multi-reel feature film to an array of film-historical transformations unfolding in the US around the same time. A critical assessment of previous scholarly work dealing with the early feature is also provided. Part I analyzes how the breakthrough of the multi-reel feature film was negotiated within the trade and by contemporary commentators. The result is a multi-perspective framing of the topic that highlights the complexity of these cultural negotiations and the uncertainty over cinema’s possible futures. Part II shifts attention to film culture and film exhibition in Philadelphia around 1914. The objective of this case study, largely based on newspaper sources, is to examine how the increasingly common multi-reel feature film was integrated into and/or changed the existing film culture in the city. The main conclusion is that experimentation and diversity rather than smooth transitions characterized the local response to the emergence of features. Part III deepens the investigation of local diversity by offering a case study of one particular film: The Spoilers (Selig Polyscope Co., 1914). The conditions of the film’s historical reception are outlined, and particular attention is given to the film’s role in the Americanization of the feature film market.

The 1980s is a formative decade in American history. America sought to reestablish itself as a global power and to reassert the dominant ideology of white, patriarchal capitalism. Likewise, media producers in the 1980s sought to reassert the dominance of the white, male, muscled body in filmic representations. The identity politics of the 1980s and the depictions of the white, muscled body once prominent in the 1980s have been the site of conservative nostalgia for a young, male-dominated, cult audience that is a subset of a larger cultural trend known as retro film culture. This thesis provides historical context behind the populist 1980s B-action films from Cannon Group, Inc that celebrate violent masculinity in filmic representations with white, male action heroes. Equally important is the revival of VHS collecting and how this 1980s-inspired subculture reinforces white, patriarchal capitalism through the cult films they valorize and their capitalistic trading practices despite their claims of oppositionality against mainstream taste and Hollywood films. Lastly, this thesis reveals how a new cycle of contemporary films primarily produced outside of Hollywood reasserts and celebrates the dominance of the white, male, muscled body in filmic representations despite a postmodern and hyperconscious exterior. Overall, I argue how these areas of nostalgia are distinct, yet not unrelated, because they reassert white, patriarchal capitalism through the revival of conservative nostalgia for the 1980s.

Eva Dahlbeck was one of Sweden’s most respected and popular actresses from the 1940s to the 1960s and is now remembered for her work with Ingmar Bergman, who allegedly nicknamed her “Pansarskeppet kvinnligheten” (“H.M.S. Femininity”). However, Dahlbeck had already established herself as a star long before her collaborations with Bergman. The popularity of Bergman’s three comedies (Waiting Women (Kvinnors väntan, 1952), A Lesson in Love (En lektion i kärlek, 1954), and Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende, 1955)) suggests that they catered to the Swedish audience’s desire to see the star Dahlbeck. To explore the interrelation between Swedish post-war popular film culture and the auteur Bergman, this thesis examines the stardom of Dahlbeck, who can, as inter-texts between various films, bridge the gap between popular film and auteur film. Focusing on the decade from 1946 to 1956, the process whereby her star image was created, the aspects that constructed it, and its relation to her characters in three Bergman titles will be analysed. In doing so, this thesis will illustrate how the concept “Pansarskeppet kvinnligheten” was interactively constructed by Bergman’s films, the post-war Swedish film industry, and the media discourses which cultivated the star cult as a part of popular culture.