Behind the Screen

Goldwyn, Samuel, 1879-1974Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 306K words
Chapters: 31

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Behind the Screen by Samuel GoldwynAuthor: Goldwyn, Samuel, 1879-1974,Language: English, Class: PN: Language and Literatures: Literature: General, Criticism, Collections, Release Date: Jun 11, 2019

Editor's review

This is Samuel Goldwyn's (1879–1974) Behind the Screen, released as an ebook by Project Gutenberg in 2019. Goldwyn was a major producer of early Hollywood, which gives this work the value of a primary source in film history and the history of the entertainment industry. Readers can learn about the industry ecosystem behind the early screen, a producer's point of view, and the modes of expression of his era, rather than merely getting a plot-driven reading experience. As a public-domain ebook, it is easy to search and quote, making it suitable as supplementary material for courses in film history, media studies, and American cultural studies, and also suitable for readers interested in the prehistory of the Hollywood Golden Age to dip into at leisure. One caveat: the book is in the original English, its language and style bear the marks of its time, and its nonfiction or memoir-like narration requires some background knowledge from readers. Reading with questions in mind, alongside a film-history chronology or other historical sources, will draw out its value more than reading it straight through. It is more like a side door that researchers and film fans can push open for themselves than a systematic textbook. Suitable for slow reading, selective reading, and note-taking.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying early Hollywood and the history of the film industry
Those interested in a producer's perspective and the behind-the-scenes of media
Students who need public-domain English historical sources as course supplements
Veteran film fans who enjoy anecdotes from film history

Not a good fit for

General readers looking only for light, entertaining stories
Readers whose English reading ability is still at the beginner stage
Classroom users expecting a systematic film-theory textbook

Reading tips

Read the table of contents and preface first, identify the chapters relevant to your research questions, then read them closely.
Build an index of people and events as you read, to make later searching and citation easier.
Read alongside a film-history chronology, placing the personal narrative back in its historical context.
With the original English, use dictionary tools as needed; there is no need to translate sentence by sentence—grasp the key points.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or nonfiction?

According to the material, it is Behind the Screen by Samuel Goldwyn, a public-domain ebook released by Project Gutenberg and classified under Language and Literature. Readers should treat it as a historical text related to the early film industry, not as a plot-driven novel.

Can I read it without a background in film history?

Yes, but it is advisable first to learn the basic background of the early Hollywood studio system. The names, institutions, and industry terms in the book may require extra lookup; a chronology or introductory material will make the reading much smoother.

Is the electronic edition suitable for citation?

The Project Gutenberg edition is easy to search and copy, but for formal citation you should verify the edition information and page numbers and note the electronic source, avoiding treating electronic layout positions as original page numbers.

Comments

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About the author

Goldwyn, Samuel, 1879-1974 Author

Goldwyn, Samuel, 1879-1974, is a figure in the American film industry active in the first half of the twentieth century. The library holds one work under this name, Behind the Screen. On the basis of this single entry alone, it is difficult to determine the book's specific genre or content, and publicly available information is limited, so it would be unwise to make much of its writing style or literary influence. A cautious reading is that the work is connected with the film industry, the world behind the screen, or related subjects, and readers may treat it as one point of entry into Goldwyn himself and the film environment of his time. Because the library's author record lists the English name, nationality, and birth and death years as unknown, this introduction relies mainly on the standard form of the name and on clues from the work, and other biographical details are not supplied here.