The Community of Cinema: How Cinema and Spectacle Transformed the American Downtown [Hardcover]

The movie theater has in many ways served as a barometer of the evolution of urban America over the past century.The Community of Cinemaexplores how the growth and decline of the inner city has been intertwined with the history of the movie theater, how the cinema helped redefine the use of downtowns to include entertainment and socialization, a sense of social place in our society, and the use of spectacle as a part of our daily experience in shopping, eating, and business. This is the first book to examine directly the importance of the movie theater in the creation and growth of the modern American downtown, and its fostering of its own sense of place and community.

The Community of Cinemaalso attempts to bridge the various fields included in the subject of cinema's impact on culture and form, among them film studies, architecture, urban planning, and sociology. In so doing, author James M. Forsher explores in each chapter the ways in which the community of cinema came about, the changes it sparked in the downtown and neighborhood shopping districts, and the sense of community it added to our society as a whole.

Preface
Introduction
From Storefront to Palace
A Community of Cinema
It Started with a Nickel
Entertainment Districts and the New American Downtown
Queen Elizabeth & The Feature Film
Palaces on Main Street
Roxie
Theater as a Social Battleground
Colored Theaters
Propaganda Battles
The Church Takes up the Fight
Safe Haven
America Cinema during the Depression
World War Two Comes to Your Neighborhood Theater
From Downtown to Suburb
Los Angeles Theater District
The Battle to Integrate
The Return of Spectacle
Preserving the Age of Spectacle
Megaplexes and Spectacle in the 21st Century
Theater, Place, and Community
Bibliography