The movies as a world force : American silent cinema and the utopian imagination / Ryan Jay Friedman.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: motion pictures and modern communion -- Enlightened public opinion: post-reform progressivism, mental science, and Gerald Stanley Lee's "moving-pictures" -- "The occult elements of motion and light": Vachel Lindsay's utopia of the mirror screen -- "The motion picture is war's greatest antidote": rescue as release of force in D.W. Griffith's Intolerance -- "Everything wooed everything": the triumph of morale over moralism in Rupert Hughes's Souls for sale -- "Little grains of sand": positive thinking and corporate form in Douglas Fairbanks's The thief of Bagdad -- Conclusion: universal history and the historicity of film entertainment.

Print version record.

The Movies as a World Force is the first analysis of utopian cinema writing; situating it in its proper intellectual contexts, theology, and political philosophy; and illustrating the ways in which its utopian imagination shapes and is shaped by the era's most prestigious film genre, the historical crowd epic.

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