The Optical Vacuum

Spectatorship and Modernized American Theater Architecture

Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece

First book on the impact of the modernized theater on film spectatorship
Features previously unpublished archival materials
Addresses digitality and the death of film exhibition

The Optical Vacuum

Spectatorship and Modernized American Theater Architecture

Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece

Description

Between the 1920s and the 1960s, American mainstream cinematic architecture underwent a seismic shift. From the massive movie palace to the intimate streamlined theater, movie theaters became neutralized spaces for calibrated, immersive watching. Leading this charge was New York architect Benjamin Schlanger, a fiery polemicist whose designs and essays reshaped how movies were watched. In its close examination of Schlanger's work and of changing patterns of spectatorship, this book reveals that the essence of film viewing lies not only in the text, but in the spaces where movies are shown. The Optical Vacuum demonstrates that our changing models of cinephilia are always determined by physical structure: from the decorations of the palace to the black box of the contemporary auditorium, variations in movie theater design are icons for how viewing has similarly transformed.

The Optical Vacuum

Spectatorship and Modernized American Theater Architecture

Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece

Introduction: The Theater, the Film, and the Spectator

Chapter One: Nostalgia for the Dark - Ben Schlanger and the Beginning of Neutralization, 1920-1932
Chapter Two: A Field of Light - Optics and the Demasked Screen, 1932-1952
Chapter Three: A Mobile Gaze Through Time & Space: Neutralization in the Era of Widescreen, 1950-1960
Chapter Four: Cinephilia in Ruins: An Audience of the Elite, 1960-1970

Coda
Index

The Optical Vacuum

Spectatorship and Modernized American Theater Architecture

Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece

Author Information

Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece is Assistant Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The Optical Vacuum

Spectatorship and Modernized American Theater Architecture

Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece

Reviews and Awards

"Szczepaniak-Gillece's book on exhibition history tells an utterly captivating and theoretically complex story of the architectonics of theatrical space and its impact on spectatorial attention and absorption. The Optical Vacuum makes a stunning contribution to the vibrant field of Screen Studies, arguing that design can never be divorced from the viewing experiences imagined by cinephiles as well as the doyens of modernism."--Alison Griffiths, The City University of New York

"Movie theaters are not just places to see a film. They are sites in which to experience new technologies, explore immersive environments and to innovate new modes of seeing and hearing. This fascinating book shows us that movie theaters have long been irretrievably shaped by dynamic debates across fields such as modernism, architecture, design, and commercial entertainment, inviting us to look beyond the screen and at the spaces in which movies have long been embedded. This book is essential reading for those interested in the history of theaters and cinema, as well as those interested in modernity, entertainment, and the persistent transformation of the human senses by technological design."--Haidee Wasson, Concordia University