FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"Nanna Verhoeff has produced one of the most original and imaginative works yet to be written on early cinema. Besides supplying a fascinating account of the almost totally neglected pre-history of the Western film genre, she offers a witty and insightful approach to the relation between the scholar and the archive and the nature of historical research."
Tom Gunning, University of Chicago

THE WEST IN EARLY CINEMA

After the Beginning

Nanna Verhoeff

Distributed for Amsterdam University Press by the University of Chicago Press

The archetypal American Western film conjures up images of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, or even the Lone Ranger—the solitary cowboy shooting his way through uncivilized country. But in its nascent form, the Western was a complex genre that embraced surprisingly diverse themes. In The West in Early Cinema, Nanna Verhoeff examines the earliest films made between 1894 and 1915, and reveals how the films meditate on a world far beyond the west, speaking to the relentless march of civilization.

Verhoeff draws on a rich array of archival materials—including photographs, paintings, Wild West shows, popular ethnographic studies, and pulp fiction—to situate the first Westerns in their original social contexts. At a time when numerous intellectuals talked of the "closing" of the West, the numbers of immigrants surged every year, and rapid urbanization spread across the nation, the Western film, Verhoeff shows, reflected a very modern anxiety about national and personal identity.

From railroads to the telegraph to comedic drama, The West in Early Cinema offers a thought-provoking reassessment of early film history, making it a fascinating read for scholars and film buffs alike.

Nanna Verhoeff teaches at the Institute for Media and Re/Presentation at Utrecht University.