TY - JOUR
T1 - Benjamin Brodsky (1877-1960)
T2 - The trans-pacific American film entrepreneur-part two, taking A trip Thru China to America
AU - Curry, Ramona
N1 - Funding Information:
1 Generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Humanities Research Board and Department of English supported the essay’s research and writing. This part of the essay draws on resources generously shared by Liao Gene-fon, Masako Okada, Frank Bren, Eric Pascarelli, and Kim Fahlstedt. Teresa Huang, John L. Moore, Lawrence Chang, Virginia Keller, and Naida Garcia-Crespo facilitated access to additional materials.
Publisher Copyright:
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011.
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Part One of this essay traced a biography for Benjamin Brodsky and revealed surprising facets of the production of his 1916 feature-length travelogue A Trip Thru China. Part Two addresses the film's genre inscription and cinematic qualities and relates its embedded values to its enthusiastic reception across America 1916-18. Although the ethnographic documentary pays admiring tribute to laboring men and women throughout China, it also valorizes the moribund Chinese empire, as embodied in Brodsky's ultimate patron in China, President Yuan Shikai. While fully eschewing the "Yellow Menace" U.S. discourse of its period, Trip humorously delineates the East and West as essentially diff erent. The rare work's exceptional critical and popular success from California to New York City points to Brodsky's skilled showmanship and ability to engage the support of independent movie distributors and investors. Why, then, the essay considers in conclusion, did Brodsky's subsequent experiences after his shift in 1917 to making films in Japan, including the feature-length travelogue Beautiful Japan (1918), so diverge in its outcome from his early filmmaking career in China? c Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011.
AB - Part One of this essay traced a biography for Benjamin Brodsky and revealed surprising facets of the production of his 1916 feature-length travelogue A Trip Thru China. Part Two addresses the film's genre inscription and cinematic qualities and relates its embedded values to its enthusiastic reception across America 1916-18. Although the ethnographic documentary pays admiring tribute to laboring men and women throughout China, it also valorizes the moribund Chinese empire, as embodied in Brodsky's ultimate patron in China, President Yuan Shikai. While fully eschewing the "Yellow Menace" U.S. discourse of its period, Trip humorously delineates the East and West as essentially diff erent. The rare work's exceptional critical and popular success from California to New York City points to Brodsky's skilled showmanship and ability to engage the support of independent movie distributors and investors. Why, then, the essay considers in conclusion, did Brodsky's subsequent experiences after his shift in 1917 to making films in Japan, including the feature-length travelogue Beautiful Japan (1918), so diverge in its outcome from his early filmmaking career in China? c Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011.
KW - Beautiful Japan
KW - Cinema and imperialism
KW - Early Chinese cinema
KW - Ethnographic film
KW - Film history
KW - Movie distribution
KW - Thomas Kurihara
KW - Toyo film company
KW - Travelogue
KW - Yuan Shikai
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U2 - 10.1163/187656111X6036811
DO - 10.1163/187656111X6036811
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:84899538313
SN - 1058-3947
VL - 18
SP - 142
EP - 180
JO - Journal of American-East Asian Relations
JF - Journal of American-East Asian Relations
IS - 2
ER -