Max Linder and the Emergence of Film Stardom. Issue 1 (2nd January 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Shail, Andrew
• Is Part Of: Early popular visual culture. Volume 14:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 55
• Page End: 86
• Publication Date: 2016-01-02
• Subjects: Max Linder -- Pathé Frères -- Carl Laemmle -- Florence Lawrence -- stardom -- production value -- star system; Cinematography -- History -- Periodicals; Visual communication -- History -- Periodicals; Image transmission -- History -- Periodicals; Photography -- History -- Periodicals; Popular culture -- History -- Periodicals; Entertainment events -- History -- Periodicals; 778.05
• DOI: 10.1080/17460654.2015.1092665
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1746-0654

Abstract

Abstract: This article reconstructs the story behind Pathé Frères' decision to launch the first ever star publicity campaign for a film performer who was not already famous from another cultural realm: their late-1909 campaign for Max Linder. After showing that this celebrity-building effort definitely predates the beginnings of the star system in the United States, I go on to argue that we can also draw a direct causal link between this star-system-occasioning event in France and the first decision to launch a publicity campaign in the US: IMP's campaign for Florence Lawrence, which, I show, predated the first star publicity campaigns of the Motion Picture Patents Company affiliates by several months. Proposing, therefore, that the model of the causality of the emergence of the star system proposed by Richard deCordova in Picture Personalities (1990) is incomplete, I identify the exceptional circumstances experienced by Pathé and IMP that led them, rather than their competitors, to make the significant investments necessary to establish their performer employees as production values and thereby instigate the star system, suggesting a new model of causality for the emergence of film stardom.