Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 91–120 of 381 results. Go to first page
Drawing of onomatopoetic words, exclamation points, and objects used to make noises.

The Weird, Analog Delights of Foley Sound Effects

E.T. was jello in a T-shirt. The Mummy was scratchy potpourri. For Foley artists, deception is an essential part of the enterprise.
When Tom Cruise starred in Top Gun in 1986, it wasn’t just a box office bonanza — it was a boon to the US military. Paramount Pictures

Hollywood and the Pentagon: A Love Story

For the Pentagon, films like "Top Gun: Maverick" are more than just a movie.
A pair of color stereogram photographs featuring people sitting in front of a desert stone structure.

New Look, Same Great Look

The history of humans being confounded by color photography.
A horse trotting photogravure

The Murderer Who Made Movies Possible

When horses gallop, do all four hooves ever leave the ground at once? This episode of The Disappearing Spoon recounts the saga that led to the answer.
Exhibit

Moving Pictures

Tracing the history of Americans' relationships with the silver screen, from film's earliest days to the cinematic creations of our own times.

John Bubbles dancing and Buck Washington playing keyboard, performing in Brooklyn, New York, 1930.

Never the Same Step Twice

Where previous generations of dancers arranged their steps into tidy, regular phrases, John Bubbles enjambed over bar lines, multiplying, twisting, tilting, turning.
Portraits of Dean Dixon, William Grant Still, and Margaret Bonds, three African American classical musicians.

A Prophecy Unfulfilled?

What a new book and six companion videos have to say about the fate of Black classical music in America.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, paying a visit to a hospital with wounded soldiers.

How Propaganda Became Entertaining

Ukraine’s wartime communications strategies have roots in World War II.
A picture of an eerie dark house.

This House Is Still Haunted: An Essay In Seven Gables

A spectre is haunting houses—the spectre of possession.
Close up of Sidney Poitier in In the Heat of the Night
partner

The Slap That Changed American Film-Making

When Sidney Poitier slapped a white murder suspect on screen, it changed how the stories of Black Americans were portrayed on film.
Painting of events and characters in the book Bambi, with a scared deer surrounded by violent acts of a person and dog hunting and predators capturing and eating prey.

“Bambi” Is Even Bleaker Than You Thought

The original book is far more grisly than the beloved Disney classic—and has an unsettling message about humanity.
Paul Robeson in 1960, London, performing on stage in front of a crowd.

Black King of Songs

His communism brought the great American singer Paul Robeson trouble in the US, but helped make him a hero in China.
Frame from the film with Jimmy Stewart's character George Bailey receiving hugs from his wife and children.

What 'It's a Wonderful Life' Teaches Us About American History

The Christmas classic, released 75 years ago, conveys many messages beyond having faith in one another.
Illustration of Frankenstein's monster and a terrified woman

The Horror Century

From the first morbid films a hundred years ago, scary movies always been a dark mirror on Americans’ deepest fears and anxieties.
Drawing of Stranger Things main characters on bikes

Historicizing Dystopia: Suburban Fantastic Media and White Millennial Childhood

On the nostalgic and technophobic motives of the recent boom in suburban fantastic media.
Drawing of the Alamo

How Racism, American Idealism, and Patriotism Created the Modern Myth of the Alamo and Davy Crockett

Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Stanford on the making of a misrepresented narrative.
Collection of photographs ranging including shareholders' meeting protests, the city of Rochester, and Kodak founder George Eastman.

The Rise and Fall of an American Tech Giant

Kodak changed the way Americans saw themselves and their country. But it struggled to reinvent itself for the digital age.
Bacon's Rebellion, 1676-1677

Bacon's Rebellion: My Pitch

A drama about an interracial uprising in colonial Virginia.
Animated scene from One Hundred and One Dalmatians

How 'One Hundred and One Dalmatians' Saved Disney

Sixty years ago, the company modernized animation when it used Xerox technology on the classic film.
partner

Covid-19 Changed the Way We Watch Movies. The 1918 Pandemic Set the Stage

The 1918 flu pandemic helped to usher in the Hollywood studio system. Could Covid-19 transform the industry?
An illustration featuring a man smoking a cigarette.
partner

When the CIA Was Everywhere—Except on Screen

Hollywood was just fine avoiding all portrayals of the Central Intelligence Agency for years after the agency's founding in 1947.
Still from Saving Private Ryan, depicting soldiers in a landing craft.

How Saving Private Ryan's Best Picture Loss Changed the Oscars Forever

More than just an upset, "Saving Private Ryan" losing the Best Picture Oscar to "Shakespeare in Love" changed how Academy Awards are won.
A women with her hands on the car horn
partner

Her Crazy Driving is a Key Element of Cruella de Vil’s Evil. Here’s Why.

The history of the Crazy Woman Driver trope.
Alfred Hitchcock directing

The Haunted Imagination of Alfred Hitchcock

How the master of suspense got his sadistic streak.
Rodney King at a press conference surrounded by reporters
partner

Video of the Police Assault of Rodney King Shocked Us. But What Did It Change?

Thirty years after the police beating of Rodney King, it's clear that shock and anger don't translate into meaningful reform.
A graphic featuring illustrations of Stan Lee.

The Unheroic Life of Stan Lee

In a career of many flops, he laid claim to the outsized success of Marvel Comics.
A group of people striking with 9to5.

The Labor Feminism of 9to5 Should Guide Our Organizing Today

The vision of feminist labor organizing that guided the women’s white-collar organizing project 9to5 should still be our north star.
A collage including Betty Boop.

The Mixed-Up Masters of Early Animation

Pioneering cartoonists were experimental, satiric, erotic, and artistically ambitious.
Two people watching Cliff Edwards perform on the ukelele.

Ukulele Ike, a.k.a. Cliff Edwards, Sings Again

Ukulele Ike, otherwise known as Cliff Edwards, was a major American pop star and an important early force in jazz. It’s time to give him another hearing.
Johnny Cash poses for a portrait for a publicity shot
partner

The Complications of “Outlaw Country”

Johnny Cash grappled with the many facets of the outlaw archetype in his feature acting debut, Five Minutes to Live.
A man sitting at a table

Aaron Sorkin’s Inane, Liberal History Lesson

Why his reformist retelling of the Chicago Seven fails to tell the real story of the leftists on trial.

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person