The first phase of cinema development was an era of constant innovation. First filmmakers
were visionary pioneers and entrepreneurs who saw the potential of “moving images”.
However as many new phenomenas, cinema evoked a lot of controversy around itself.
Cinema, the youngest of the ten muses (1) is now more than 100 years old. Since the very first screenings cinema has not stopped bewildering its viewers with new and more sophisticated methods in advancing the cinematography. Today first moving pictures may seem funny and infantile. Modern viewer, accustomed to spectacular shots and bold framing, fast, jump cut editing and special effects for millions of dollars, may perceive most of the first movies as dull and lousy. However some of the first viewers were so stunned by pictures which came to life, that they would even run away in fear from the first movie theatre (as the cinemas founding legend tells) (2). Late XIX and the beginning of XX century was an era of unceasing innovativeness, and though in its communicational and technological value, the infant cinematography of its first days may now seem mere, cinema from it’s very begging aspired to become something much more than just a form of entertainment. A new “universal language for telling stories with moving images projected on cinema screens” (3) is born. And their fathers are driven with innovativeness.
“One of these innovative filmmakers was Edwin S. Porter, a projectionist and engineer for
the Edison Company. Porter’s 12-minute film, “The Great Train Robbery” (1903), broke
with the stage like compositions of Méliès-style (4) films through its use of editing, camera
pans, rear projections, and diagonally composed shots that produced a continuity of
action. Not only did “The Great Train Robbery” establish the realistic narrative as a
standard in cinema, it was also the first major box-office hit. Its success paved the way for
the growth of the film industry, as investors, recognising the motion picture’s great
moneymaking potential, began opening the first permanent film theatres around the
country.”(5)
So this innovation which delighted and shocked its first audiences, this new form of
entertainment, this complicated technology with pioneer techniques creates new, engaging
and absorbing ways of storytelling. And it also creates a brand new market with huge
moneymaking potential. Cinema is a new form of entertainment, new form of
communication and new industry, which will soon evolve into one of the fastest growing
enterprises in the twentieth century.
“Known as nickelodeons (the earliest motion picture theatres), often housed in converted
storefronts) because of their 5 cent admission charge, were especially popular among the
working class of the time, who couldn’t afford live theatre. Between 1904 and 1908, around
9,000 nickelodeons appeared in the United States. It was the nickelodeon’s popularity that
established film as a mass entertainment medium.” (6)
Nickelodeons popularity was enormous. It was a new gold mine, both in USA and in
Europe. Business was blooming. Even though cinema was for more than a decade
deprived of its right to be considered something more than just a technological curiosity
and a form of cheap entertainment. First appeals and proclamations of “the art of the
cinema” were invoked by Vachel Lindsey’s 1915 book entitled “The Art of the Moving
Picture.” “By employing references to Rembrandt lighting, the frame as analogous to the
theatrical proscenium arch, and the aesthetic experience, an argument was successfully advanced that film was not merely a crass, commercial trade or a mindless diversion.
[…]Indeed, broadening the analysis of movies as a mass communications medium was
perhaps a difficult case to make since, on top of everything else, the very popularity of
movies may have deflected attention away from all but the movies’ content. Serious
scholars seem especially prone to believe that that which is popular is that which is trivial;
after all, how can serious scholars expect to gain prominent reputations among their peers
by studying those things which are knowable to so many?”(7)
Then again around same year another aspect of cinematography was brought to light to
the public opinion. “In 1915 the Supreme Court stated that filmmakers can not demand
freedom of speech because their works have too much influence on viewers.”(8) So in fact
power of cinema was identified quickly and so was the need to control it. However before
the cinematography was considered and studied as a mass communication medium, many
more innovations and techniques in this new form of storytelling had to be born, and
cinema had taken its classical shape. (9)
(Frame from Georges Méliès’ Trip to the Moon)
1) Term “tenth muse" was used for the first time in 1924 by Karol Irzykowski in his work with the same title: The tenth muse. Theoretical and aesthetic aspects of cinema Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, Warsaw
2) Cooper A., Did one of the first film audiences panic over footage of a train? https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/first-film-audiences-panic-footage-train.htm, accessed 18.05.18.
3) Fisher B., Flashback - Evolution of Art in Cinematography https://www.imago.org/index.php/news/item/321-flashback-evolution-of-art-in-cinematography-article-by-bob-fisher.html, accessed 5.02.17
4) Georges Méliès’ Trip to the Moon was one of the first films to incorporate fantasy elements and to use “trick” filming techniques, both of which heavily influenced future filmmakers.
5) Campbell R. Mass Communication, Media and Culture, http://2012books.lardbucket.org/pdfs/masscommunication-media-and-culture/s11-movies.pdf, p. 370
6) Holznagle R. F., Dictionary of American History, 3rd ed., s.v. “Nickelodeon”, Gale Virtual Reference Library, in: Campbell R. “Mass Communication, Media and Culture”
7) Austin B.A., Movies as Mass Communication http://cjconline.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/617/523 accessed 5.02.17
8) Misiak A., Kinematograf kontrolowany - cenzura filmowa w kraju socjalistycznym i demokratycznym (PRL i USA), TAiWPN UNIVERSITAS, Kraków 2006
9) Term “classical cinema”, here in the context of classical Hollywood cinema is adopted from David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960, Columbia University Press, New York 1985
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