The electric hotel / Dominic Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smith, Dominic, 1971- author.

Contributor:

Class of 1932 Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Film historians.

Motion picture industry.

Cinematographers.

Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)--History--20th century--Fiction.

Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.).

United States.

California--Los Angeles.

France.

Cinematographers--France--Fiction.

Motion picture industry--California--Los Angeles--Fiction.

Film historians--United States--Fiction.

Genre:

Fiction.

Historical fiction.

Novels.

Physical Description:

336 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, [2019]

Summary:

"Winds through the nascent days of cinema in Paris and Fort Lee, New Jersey-America's first movie town-and on the battlefields of Belgium during World War I. A sweeping work of historical fiction, it shimmers between past and present as it tells the story of the rise and fall of a prodigious film studio and one man's doomed obsession with all that passes in front of the viewfinder.For nearly half a century, Claude Ballard has been living at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel. A French pioneer of silent films, who started out as a concession agent for the Lumière brothers, the inventors of cinema, Claude now spends his days foraging mushrooms in the hills of Los Angeles and taking photographs of runaways and the striplings along Sunset Boulevard. But when a film-history student comes to interview Claude about The Electric Hotel-the lost masterpiece that bankrupted him and ended the career of his muse, Sabine Montrose-the past comes surging back. In his run-down hotel suite, the ravages of the past are waiting to be excavated: celluloid fragments and reels in desperate need of restoration, and Claude's memories of the woman who inspired and beguiled him."-- Provided by publisher.

"Winds through the nascent days of cinema in Paris and Fort Lee, New Jersey-America's first movie town-and on the battlefields of Belgium during World War I. A sweeping work of historical fiction, it shimmers between past and present as it tells the story of the rise and fall of a prodigious film studio and one man's doomed obsession with all that passes in front of the viewfinder.For nearly half a century, Claude Ballard has been living at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel. A French pioneer of silent films, who started out as a concession agent for the Lumière brothers, the inventors of cinema, Claude now spends his days foraging mushrooms in the hills of Los Angeles and taking photographs of runaways and the striplings along Sunset Boulevard. But when a film-history student comes to interview Claude about The Electric Hotel-the lost masterpiece that bankrupted him and ended the career of his muse, Sabine Montrose-the past comes surging back. In his run-down hotel suite, the ravages of the past are waiting to be excavated: celluloid fragments and reels in desperate need of restoration, and Claude's memories of the woman who inspired and beguiled him."-- Provided by publisher.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Green fund bookplate.

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Class of 1932 Fund.

ISBN:

9780374146856

0374146853

OCLC:

1053574363