Fade In, Crossroads

A History of the Southern Cinema

Robert Jackson

Uniquely examines the myriad relationships between southerners and motion pictures in general, rather than one specific film or genre
Provides a history of southerners as producers, filmmakers, performers, critics, and audiences
Provides a history of southerners' contributions to the rise of the film medium and Hollywood studio system
Synthesizes existing scholarship on several areas of film history (including early cinema, the Hollywood studio system, and the race film industry), southern history, African American history, and contributions of American literary figures to film history (William Faulkner, Lillian Hellman, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and many others)
Examines the influence of Jim Crow segregation on the development of the film industry, and the simultaneous influence of film on the development of segregation

Fade In, Crossroads

A History of the Southern Cinema

Robert Jackson

Description

Fade In, Crossroads is a history of the relations between southerners and motion pictures from the silent era to midcentury. Examining the ways in which the South contributed to the development of the film medium from the late nineteenth century through the golden age of Hollywood, it sheds light on early production centers within the region, such as Jacksonville, Florida and Asheville, North Carolina. It also explores the migration of millions of black and white southerners beyond the South to such destinations as Los Angeles, and their impact on the industry. Fade In, Crossroads tells the story of how the rise and fall of the American film industry coincided with the rise and fall of the South's most important modern product and export: Jim Crow segregation.

This work details the varied encounters of southern literary figures including William Faulkner, Richard Wright, and many others with the medium as viewers, screenwriters, critics, and filmmakers, and considers the medium's influence on their literary writings. It takes a crucial look at southern historical legacies on film: the prolific Civil War film tradition; the notorious tradition of lynching films during an era of widespread lynching in the South; and the remarkable race film industry, whose independent African American filmmakers forged an important cinematic tradition in response to the racial limitations of both the South and Hollywood. Fade In, Crossroads also maps the influence of film on future participants in the Civil Rights Movement, from prominent leaders such as Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall to film-industry veterans like Lena Horne and Paul Robeson to the millions of ordinary people, black and white, who found themselves caught up in the struggle for racial equality in the modern United States.

Fade In, Crossroads

A History of the Southern Cinema

Robert Jackson

Introduction At the Crossroads
Chapter 1. This Southern Advent
Chapter 2. Migrant Media
Chapter 3. The Silver Dream Accumulated
Chapter 4. And the War Came
Chapter 5. A Theater of Violence
Chapter 6. The Matter of Treatment
Chapter 7. Pruning Knife Busy
Conclusion Scattering into Every Crossroad
Index

Fade In, Crossroads

A History of the Southern Cinema

Robert Jackson

Author Information

Robert Jackson, Associate Professor of Film, University of Tulsa

Robert Jackson is an James G. Watson Professor of English at the University of Tulsa, where he is also affiliated with programs in Film Studies and African American Studies. Specializing in cultural studies of the modern United States, he works at the intersection of literature, film and media studies, and social history. Among his prior publications is Seeking the Region in American Literature and Culture: Modernity, Dissidence, Innovation (2005).

Fade In, Crossroads

A History of the Southern Cinema

Robert Jackson

Reviews and Awards

"[A] comprehensive study of the cinema of the American South meticulously researched." - Keith Hopper, Times Literary Supplement

"An extremely fascinating work on southern cinema that extends from actors, literary figures, and industry workers who influenced popular representations of the South to filmmakers who built homes emulating southern mansions to actors who brought their own interpretations of the South to the screen. Jackson intricately interweaves the contributions of African American cinema into this discussion, making it integral to rather than tangential to this engaging, thoughtful, and well researched examination of the Souths influence on Hollywood." - Charlene Regester, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"Covering both the famous and the obscure, Jackson's exciting and often surprising volume shows how integral southern topics and southern people were to filmmaking through the 1940s." - Ted Ownby, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi