Abstract

This thesis traces the emergence of film criticism discourse in American film trade publications between the years 1906 and 1913, giving particular attention to the most prolific of these journals, Moving Picture World . Early film criticism is a discourse of complex determinations, influenced in part by progressive ideology, film as art discourse, industry objectives, and individual creativity. Film scholars so far have concentrated on the differences between early and later criticism but this has led them to erroneously conclude that early film criticism is in fact not "criticism" proper. In the first instance, my research shows that early film criticism shares an interpretive gesture with contemporary film criticism, and should therefore not be excluded from the history of this discursive practice. Moreover, a close analysis of early film criticism within its own historical, cultural and institutional context shows that it also followed its own standards and discursive logics, making the modern concept of "film criticism" an unnecessary standard for judging the value of these early texts.

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