Art Film Writing in American Modernist Periodicals, 1910s–1930s

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article connects periodical and film studies to present a history of film criticism in the United States. Through modernist periodicals such as The Seven Arts and The Soil, the article traces film writing’s evolution from scattered articles in the 1910s to the creation of Experimental Cinema by 1930. Rediscovering these early film writings in relation to Experimental Cinema decenters trade journals and newspapers to emphasize developments outside of mainstream print. It also clarifies cinema’s historical role in American progressives’ projects of modernism in the twentieth century by offering intellectual, political, and cultural insights into film’s appearance in modernist periodicals.