Webinar- Silent Serial Sensations: Ithaca's Wharton Brothers and The Magic of Early Cinema

The first book-length study of pioneering and prolific filmmakers Ted and Leo Wharton, Silent Serial Sensations offers a fascinating account of the dynamic early film industry. As Barbara Tepa Lupack demonstrates, brothers Ted and Leo Wharton were behind some of the most profitable and influential productions of the era, including The Exploits of Elaine and The Mysteries of Myra, which starred such popular performers as Pearl White, Irene Castle, Francis X. Bushman, and Lionel Barrymore. Working from the independent film studio they established in Ithaca, New York, Ted and Leo turned their adopted town into "Hollywood on Cayuga." By interweaving contemporary events and incorporating technological and scientific innovations, the Whartons expanded the possibilities of the popular serial motion picture and defined many of its conventions. A number of the sensational techniques and character types they introduced are still being employed by directors and producers a century later. 

Barbara Tepa Lupack, former professor of English at St. John's University and Wayne State College and Academic Dean at SUNY/Empire State, has written extensively on American literature, film, and culture. Author of more than twenty-five books—including Silent Serial Sensations: The Wharton Brothers and The Magic of Early Cinema (just released in April, 2020 by Cornell University Press) and Being There in the Age of Trump (forthcoming, fall, 2020)—she served as New York State Public Scholar from 2015 until 2018. Former Fulbright Professor of American Literature in Poland and in France, she has held a number of recent fellowships, including Senior Fellow at  the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies, Lehman Senior Fellow at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and Everett Helm Fellow at the Lilly Library, University of Indiana.

6:00pm webinar, gratis. Advance registration required. Registrants will receive the link to view the lecture in the confirmation email.