In response to Ben Alpers's question about crowd scenes in Hollywood
films:  A classic analysis of a crowd/mob scene is the Cahiers du
Cinema essay on John Ford's YOUNG MR. LINCOLN.  It is translated and
anthologized in Bill Nichols's MOVIES AND METHODS, vol. 1.  For a
contrasting analysis of the rhetoric of the crowd, you might see
T. Benson, "Rhetoric As a Way of Being," in Benson, ed., AMERICAN
RHETORIC: CONTEXT AND CRITICISM (Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1989), where I compare an actual crowd event with
the typical film version.  For a non-Hollywood crowd scene, see
Kristin Thompson's analysis of EISENSTEIN'S IVAN THE TERRIBLE
(Princeton Univ. Press).  I'm in the midst of doing some more writing
on this set of issues, and would be pleased to hear of your work,
Ben, when it's published.
 
Tom Benson
Penn State University