Description: The Jazz Singer was the first feature length film with spoken dialog as part of the dramatic action. Set in the 1920s, it deals with the elemental conflicts underlying a precise historical moment for the first-generation Jew in America--sacred versus profane, Jew versus Gentile, ascetic versus libertine, deprivation versus economic promise, immobility versus displacement.
Brief description:
Tino Balio is professor emeritus of film in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and former director of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. He is author of United Artists, Volume 1, 1919-1950 and Volume 2, 1951-1978 as well as Grand Design: Hollywood as Modern Business Enterprise, 1930-1939. He is editor of The American Film Industry and Hollywood in the Age of Television.