Around 1790, this practice was developed into a type of multi-media ghost show known as phantasmagoria that was much more accessible since it was usually advertised as scientifically produced apparitions to proof that ghosts are not real.
Starting in 1878 with the publication of The Horse in Motion cabinet cards, photographer Eadweard Muybridge began making hundreds of chronophotographic studies of the motion of animals and humans in real-time.
In 1879, Muybridge started lecturing on animal locomotion and used his Zoopraxiscope to project animations of the contours of his recordings, traced onto glass discs.
Long after the introduction of cinema, Muybridge's recordings would occasionally be animated into very short films with fluent motion (relatively often the footage can be presented as a loop that repeats the motion seamlessly). In 1887, Ottomar Anschütz started presenting his chronophotographic recordings as animated photography on a small milk-glass screen and later in peep-box automats.
Many of these movies showed well-known vaudeville acts performing in Edison's Black Maria studio. ==1892–1895: Early screenings== Émile Reynaud exploited his Théâtre Optique ("Optical Theatre", patented in 1888) between 28 October 1892 to March 1900 with over 12,800 shows to a total of over 500,000 visitors at the Musée Grévin in Paris.
The earliest films were in black and white, under a minute long, without recorded sound and consisted of a single shot from a steady camera. Conventions toward a general cinematic language developed over the years with editing, camera movements and other cinematic techniques contributing specific roles in the narrative of films. Special effects became a feature in movies since the late 1890s, popularized by Georges Méliès' fantasy films.
Many of these movies showed well-known vaudeville acts performing in Edison's Black Maria studio. ==1892–1895: Early screenings== Émile Reynaud exploited his Théâtre Optique ("Optical Theatre", patented in 1888) between 28 October 1892 to March 1900 with over 12,800 shows to a total of over 500,000 visitors at the Musée Grévin in Paris.
Some scenes probably depicted staged comical scenes and many may have directly influenced later films by the Edison Company, such as Fred Ott's Sneeze. In 1893, Edison introduced the long-awaited Kinetoscope, with looped film strips in a peep-box viewer that could last for about half a minute before starting over.
His Pantomimes Lumineuses were a series of animated stories that included Pauvre Pierrot and Autour d'une cabine. On 25, 29 and 30 November 1894, Anschütz presented his pictures on a large screen in the darkened Grand Auditorium of a Post Office Building in Berlin.
The technical problems were resolved by 1923. Illustrated songs were a notable exception to this trend that began in 1894 in vaudeville houses and persisted as late as the late 1930s in film theaters.
Although the advent of film as an artistic medium is not clearly defined, the commercial, public screening of ten of Lumière brothers' short films in Paris on 28 December 1895 can be regarded as the breakthrough of projected cinematographic motion pictures.
cinemas between the 1910s and the late 1960s), musicals (mainstream since the late 1920s) and pornographic films (experiencing a Golden Age during the 1970s). ==Before 1895== Film as an art form has drawn on several earlier traditions in the fields such as (oral) storytelling, literature, theatre and visual arts.
From 22 February to 30 March 1895, a commercial 1,5-hour program of 40 different scenes was screened for audiences of 300 people at the old Reichstag and received circa 4,000 visitors. The Berlin Wintergarten theater hosted an early movie presentation by the Skladanowsky brothers during the month of November 1895.
However, the Berlin papers were seldom critical about shows due to the revenue of the theatre advertisements they placed. The Lumière Brothers gave their first commercial screening with the Cinématographe in Paris on 28 December 1895.
Dickson left Edison's company in 1895 to exploit his Mutoscope, with much success.
1' of 1895 was the first camera to feature reverse-cranking, which allowed the same film footage to be exposed several times and thereby to create super-positions and multiple exposures.
In 1896, they started to compete with Edison and the many others who engaged in the new market of film screening, production and distribution.
The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company was the most successful motion picture company in the United States for a while, with the largest production until 1900. Beginning in 1896, magician Georges Méliès, started producing, directing, and distributing an oeuvre that would eventually contain over 500 short films.
The Khanzhonkov company quickly became much the largest Russian film company, and remained so until 1918. In Germany, Oskar Messter had been involved in film-making from 1896, but did not make a significant number of films per year until 1910.
He built one of the first film studios in May 1897.
Smith started the Vitagraph Company of America in 1897.
Paul in 1897, on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
Another example of this is the reproductions of scenes from the Greco-Turkish war, made by Georges Méliès in 1897.
By 1898 Méliès was the largest producer of fiction films in France and his output consisted mostly of fiction films featuring trick effects, which were very successful in all markets.
This was pioneered by George Albert Smith in July 1898 in England.
Even Méliès' Cendrillon (Cinderella) of 1898 contained no action moving from one shot to the next one.
Paul's Come Along, Do!, made in 1898 and one of the first films to feature more than one shot.
The special popularity of his longer films, which were several minutes long from 1899 onwards (while most other films were still only a minute long), led other makers to start producing longer films. J.
Smith and other producers were joined by Cecil Hepworth in 1899, and in a few years he was turning out 100 films a year, with his company becoming the largest on the British scene. From 1900 Charles Pathé began film production under the Pathé-Frères brand, with Ferdinand Zecca hired to actually make the films.
This technique was first used in his 1901 film Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost. The further development of action continuity in multi-shot films continued in 1899 at the Brighton School in England.
Many of these movies showed well-known vaudeville acts performing in Edison's Black Maria studio. ==1892–1895: Early screenings== Émile Reynaud exploited his Théâtre Optique ("Optical Theatre", patented in 1888) between 28 October 1892 to March 1900 with over 12,800 shows to a total of over 500,000 visitors at the Musée Grévin in Paris.
Hand-coloured films, which were being produced of the most popular subjects before 1900, cost 2 to 3 times as much per foot.
The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company was the most successful motion picture company in the United States for a while, with the largest production until 1900. Beginning in 1896, magician Georges Méliès, started producing, directing, and distributing an oeuvre that would eventually contain over 500 short films.
Smith and other producers were joined by Cecil Hepworth in 1899, and in a few years he was turning out 100 films a year, with his company becoming the largest on the British scene. From 1900 Charles Pathé began film production under the Pathé-Frères brand, with Ferdinand Zecca hired to actually make the films.
By 1905, Pathé was the largest film company in the world, a position it retained until World War I. Léon Gaumont began film production in 1900, with his production supervised by Alice Guy. ==1905–1914: innovation and early storytelling== The first successful permanent theatre showing nothing but films was “The Nickelodeon”, which was opened in Pittsburgh in 1905.
His The Corsican Brothers was described in the catalogue of the Warwick Trading Company in 1900: "By extremely careful photography the ghost appears *quite transparent*.
The earliest surviving example of this technique is Smith's The House That Jack Built, made before September 1900. Cecil Hepworth took this technique further, by printing the negative of the forwards motion backwards frame by frame, so producing a print in which the original action was exactly reversed.
This arrangement came to be called a "projection printer", and eventually an "optical printer". The use of different camera speeds also appeared around 1900 in the films of Robert W.
A month later, the Bamforth company in Yorkshire made a restaged version of this film under the same title, and in this case they filmed shots of a train entering and leaving a tunnel from beside the tracks, which they joined before and after their version of the kiss inside the train compartment. ==1900 - 1909== In 1900, continuity of action across successive shots was definitively established by George Albert Smith and James Williamson, who also worked in Brighton.
Even more remarkable is James Williamson's 1900 film, Attack on a China Mission.
The film also used the first "reverse angle" cut in film history. G.A Smith pioneered the use of the close-up shot in his 1900 films, As Seen Through a Telescope and Grandma's Reading Glass.
There were nearly a thousand of these films made up to 1901, nearly all of them actualities. ==1896–1905: novelty attraction, cheap entertainment, early industry== The novelty of realistic moving photographs was enough for a motion picture industry to blossom before the end of the century, in countries around the world.
This technique was first used in his 1901 film Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost. The further development of action continuity in multi-shot films continued in 1899 at the Brighton School in England.
He further developed the ideas of breaking a scene shot in one place into a series of shots taken from different camera positions over the next couple of years, starting with The Little Doctors of 1901 (the film, now thought lost, was remade as The Sick Kitten in 1903).
His films were the first to establish the basics of coherent narrative and what became known as film language, or "film grammar". James Williamson pioneered making films that had continuous action from shot to shot such as in his 1901 film Stop Thief!. Films of this genre were later termed "chase films".
These were inspired by James Williamson's Stop Thief! of 1901, which showed a tramp stealing a leg of mutton from a butcher's boy in the first shot, then being chased through the second shot by the butcher's boy and assorted dogs, and finally being caught by the dogs in the third shot.
Porter, who started making films for the Edison Company in 1901.
But in fact, it was in 1901 when the first color film in history was created.
When he began making longer films in 1902, he put a dissolve between every shot, just as Georges Méliès was already doing, and he frequently had the same action repeated across the dissolves.
The Great Train Robbery served as one of the vehicles that would launch the film medium into mass popularity. The Pathé company in France also made imitations and variations of Smith and Williamson's films from 1902 onwards using cuts between the shots, which helped to standardize the basics of film construction.
He further developed the ideas of breaking a scene shot in one place into a series of shots taken from different camera positions over the next couple of years, starting with The Little Doctors of 1901 (the film, now thought lost, was remade as The Sick Kitten in 1903).
He summed up his work in Mary Jane's Mishap of 1903, with repeated cuts to a close shot of a housemaid fooling around.
Several British films made in the first half of 1903 extended the chase method of film construction.
By 1905, Pathé was the largest film company in the world, a position it retained until World War I. Léon Gaumont began film production in 1900, with his production supervised by Alice Guy. ==1905–1914: innovation and early storytelling== The first successful permanent theatre showing nothing but films was “The Nickelodeon”, which was opened in Pittsburgh in 1905.
It was first shown at the Athenaeum Hall in Collins Street, Melbourne, Australia on 26 December 1906 and in the UK in January 1908. ===Maturation and film business=== The first successful permanent theatre showing only films was "The Nickelodeon", which was opened in Pittsburgh in 1905.
There, Ambrosio was the first company in the field in 1905, and remained the largest in the country through this period.
Many effects were impossible or impractical to perform in theater plays and thus added more magic to the experience of movies. Technical improvements added length (reaching 60 minutes for a feature film in 1906), synchronized sound recording (mainstream since the end of the 1920s), color (mainstream since the 1930s) and 3D (mainstream in theaters in the early 1950s and since the 2000s).
The American situation led to a world-wide boom in the production and exhibition of films from 1906 onwards. Movie theaters became popular entertainment venues and social hubs in the early 20th century, much like cabarets and other theaters. Until 1927, most motion pictures were produced without sound.
Stuart Blackton's The Haunted Hotel (1907) as well as hand-drawn short animation films like Blackton's 1906 film Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (with some cut-out animation) and Émile Cohl's Fantasmagorie (1908). The world's first animated feature film was El Apóstol (1917), made by Italian-Argentine cartoonist Quirino Cristiani utilizing cutout animation.
The first feature-length multi-reel film in the world was the 1906 Australian production called The Story of the Kelly Gang. It traced the life of the legendary infamous outlaw and bushranger Ned Kelly (1855–1880) and ran for more than an hour with a reel length of approximately 4,000 feet (1,200 m).
It was first shown at the Athenaeum Hall in Collins Street, Melbourne, Australia on 26 December 1906 and in the UK in January 1908. ===Maturation and film business=== The first successful permanent theatre showing only films was "The Nickelodeon", which was opened in Pittsburgh in 1905.
The American experience led to a worldwide boom in the production and exhibition of films from 1906 onwards. By 1907, purpose-built cinemas for motion pictures were being opened across the United States, Britain and France.
Its most substantial rival was Cines in Rome, which started producing in 1906.
The Nordisk company was set up there in 1906 by Ole Olsen, a fairground showman, and after a brief period imitating the successes of French and British filmmakers, in 1907 he produced 67 films, most directed by Viggo Larsen, with sensational subjects like Den hvide Slavinde (The White Slave), Isbjørnejagt (Polar Bear Hunt) and Løvejagten (The Lion Hunt).
By 1907, it was one of the most prolific American film production company, producing many famous silent films. The first rotating camera for taking panning shots was built by British pioneer Robert W.
The American experience led to a worldwide boom in the production and exhibition of films from 1906 onwards. By 1907, purpose-built cinemas for motion pictures were being opened across the United States, Britain and France.
In 1907, Pathé began renting their films to cinemas through film exchanges rather than selling the films outright. The litigation over patents between all the major American film-making companies had continued, and at the end of 1908 they decided to pool their patents and form a trust to use them to control the American film business.
The Nordisk company was set up there in 1906 by Ole Olsen, a fairground showman, and after a brief period imitating the successes of French and British filmmakers, in 1907 he produced 67 films, most directed by Viggo Larsen, with sensational subjects like Den hvide Slavinde (The White Slave), Isbjørnejagt (Polar Bear Hunt) and Løvejagten (The Lion Hunt).
It was first shown at the Athenaeum Hall in Collins Street, Melbourne, Australia on 26 December 1906 and in the UK in January 1908. ===Maturation and film business=== The first successful permanent theatre showing only films was "The Nickelodeon", which was opened in Pittsburgh in 1905.
In 1907, Pathé began renting their films to cinemas through film exchanges rather than selling the films outright. The litigation over patents between all the major American film-making companies had continued, and at the end of 1908 they decided to pool their patents and form a trust to use them to control the American film business.
In need of a winter headquarters, moviemakers were attracted to Jacksonville, Florida due to its warm climate, exotic locations, excellent rail access, and cheaper labor, earning the city the title of "The Winter Film Capital of the World." New York-based Kalem Studios was the first to open a permanent studio in Jacksonville in 1908.
Film d'Art was set up at the beginning of 1908 to make films of a serious artistic nature.
They started out by imitating the subjects favoured by the Danish film industry, but by 1913 they were producing their own strikingly original work, which sold very well. Russia began its film industry in 1908 with Pathé shooting some fiction subjects there, and then the creation of real Russian film companies by Aleksandr Drankov and Aleksandr Khanzhonkov.
Griffith also began using cross-cutting in the film The Fatal Hour, made in July 1908.
Genres began to be used as categories; the main division was into comedy and drama, but these categories were further subdivided. Intertitles containing lines of dialogue began to be used consistently from 1908 onwards, such as in Vitagraph's An Auto Heroine; or, The Race for the Vitagraph Cup and How It Was Won.
His company continued production for the viewers until 1909, but also developed the Biograph projector.
A month later, the Bamforth company in Yorkshire made a restaged version of this film under the same title, and in this case they filmed shots of a train entering and leaving a tunnel from beside the tracks, which they joined before and after their version of the kiss inside the train compartment. ==1900 - 1909== In 1900, continuity of action across successive shots was definitively established by George Albert Smith and James Williamson, who also worked in Brighton.
distributors) stayed outside the MPPC, and in 1909 these independent exchanges immediately began to fund new film producing companies.
Edison, Inc.'s film patents and its litigious attempts to preserve it, many filmmakers moved to Southern California, starting with Selig in 1909.
This trend was followed in Italy, Denmark, and Sweden. In Britain, the Cinematograph Act 1909 was the first primary legislation to specifically regulate the film industry.
Here, Charles Magnusson, a newsreel cameraman for the Svenskabiografteatern cinema chain, started fiction film production for them in 1909, directing a number of the films himself.
1939, a major year for American cinema, brought such films as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with The Wind. ===Color in cinema=== Previously, it was believed that color films were first projected in 1909 at the Palace Theatre in London (the main problem with the color being that the technique, created by George Smith, (Kinemacolor) only used two colors: green and red, which were mixed additively).
cinemas between the 1910s and the late 1960s), musicals (mainstream since the late 1920s) and pornographic films (experiencing a Golden Age during the 1970s). ==Before 1895== Film as an art form has drawn on several earlier traditions in the fields such as (oral) storytelling, literature, theatre and visual arts.
By 1910, the French film companies were starting to make films as long as two, or even three reels, though most were still one reel long.
The Act specified a strict building code which required, amongst other things, that the projector be enclosed within a fire resisting enclosure. Regular newsreels were exhibited from 1910 and soon became a popular way for finding out the news the British Antarctic Expedition to the South Pole was filmed for the newsreels as were the suffragette demonstrations that were happening at the same time.
Percy Smith was an early nature documentary pioneer working for Charles Urban and he pioneered the use of time lapse and micro cinematography in his 1910 documentary on the growth of flowers. ==1910 - 1919== ===New film producing countries=== With the worldwide film boom, more countries now joined Britain, France, Germany and the United States in serious film production.
By 1910, new smaller Danish companies began joining the business, and besides making more films about the white slave trade, they contributed other new subjects.
The Khanzhonkov company quickly became much the largest Russian film company, and remained so until 1918. In Germany, Oskar Messter had been involved in film-making from 1896, but did not make a significant number of films per year until 1910.
But altogether, German producers only had a minor part of the German market in 1914. Overall, from about 1910, American films had the largest share of the market in all European countries except France, and even in France, the American films had just pushed the local production out of first place on the eve of World War I.
Another development was the use of the Point of View shot, first used in 1910 in Vitagraph's Back to Nature.
As well as the symbolic inserts already mentioned, the film also made extensive use of large numbers of Big Close Up shots of clutching hands and tapping feet as a means of emphasizing those parts of the body as indicators of psychological tension. Atmospheric inserts were developed in Europe in the late 1910s.
By 1911 there were enough independent and foreign films available to programme all the shows of the independent exhibitors, and in 1912 the independents had nearly half of the market.
It was only when Paul Davidson, the owner of a chain of cinemas, brought Asta Nielsen and Urban Gad to Germany from Denmark in 1911, and set up a production company, Projektions-AG "Union" (PAGU), for them, that a change-over to renting prints began.
By 1911 there were enough independent and foreign films available to programme all the shows of the independent exhibitors, and in 1912 the independents had nearly half of the market.
Kalem also pioneered the female action heroine from 1912, with Ruth Roland playing starring roles in their Westerns. In France, Pathé retained its dominant position, followed still by Gaumont, and then other new companies that appeared to cater to the film boom.
By 1912, the Danish film companies were multiplying rapidly. The Swedish film industry was smaller and slower to get started than the Danish industry.
Production increased in 1912, when the company engaged Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller as directors.
The dialogue was eventually inserted into the middle of the scene and became commonplace by 1912.
The Universal Film Manufacturing Company was formed in 1912 as an umbrella company.
These factors quickly sealed the demise of Jacksonville as a major film destination. Another factor for the industry's move west was that up until 1913, most American film production was still carried out around New York, but due to the monopoly of Thomas A.
They started out by imitating the subjects favoured by the Danish film industry, but by 1913 they were producing their own strikingly original work, which sold very well. Russia began its film industry in 1908 with Pathé shooting some fiction subjects there, and then the creation of real Russian film companies by Aleksandr Drankov and Aleksandr Khanzhonkov.
New entrants included the Jesse Lasky Feature Play Company, and Famous Players, both formed in 1913, and later amalgamated into Famous Players-Lasky.
But altogether, German producers only had a minor part of the German market in 1914. Overall, from about 1910, American films had the largest share of the market in all European countries except France, and even in France, the American films had just pushed the local production out of first place on the eve of World War I.
close-ups of objects other than faces, had already been established by the Brighton school, but were infrequently used before 1914.
Maurice Elvey's Nelson; The Story of England's Immortal Naval Hero (1919) has a symbolic sequence dissolving from a picture of Kaiser Wilhelm II to a peacock, and then to a battleship. By 1914, continuity cinema was the established mode of commercial cinema.
Humphrey, 1914), is even more complex, with a series of reveries and flash-backs that contrast the protagonist's real passage through life with what might have been, if his son had not died. After 1914, cross cutting between parallel actions came to be used more so in American films than in European ones.
Although film production began again in 1915, it was on a reduced scale, and the biggest companies gradually retired from production.
In Denmark, the Nordisk company increased its production so much in 1915 and 1916 that it could not sell all its films, which led to a very sharp decline in Danish production, and the end of Denmark's importance on the world film scene. The German film industry was seriously weakened by the war.
This began in 1915, with some shots being intentionally thrown out of focus for expressive effect, as in Mary Pickford starrer Fanchon the Cricket. It was during this period that camera effects intended to convey the subjective feelings of characters in a film really began to be established.
In Denmark, the Nordisk company increased its production so much in 1915 and 1916 that it could not sell all its films, which led to a very sharp decline in Danish production, and the end of Denmark's importance on the world film scene. The German film industry was seriously weakened by the war.
However, both the shooting of the film and its projection suffered from major unrelated issues that, eventually, sank the idea. Subsequently, in 1916, the technicolor technique arrived (trichromatic procedure (green, red, blue).
The first motion picture made in Technicolor and the first feature-length color movie produced in the United States, The Gulf Between, was also filmed on location in Jacksonville in 1917. Jacksonville was especially important to the African American film industry.
In 1917, conservative Democrat John W.
The Khanzhonkov company quickly became much the largest Russian film company, and remained so until 1918. In Germany, Oskar Messter had been involved in film-making from 1896, but did not make a significant number of films per year until 1910.
Percy Smith was an early nature documentary pioneer working for Charles Urban and he pioneered the use of time lapse and micro cinematography in his 1910 documentary on the growth of flowers. ==1910 - 1919== ===New film producing countries=== With the worldwide film boom, more countries now joined Britain, France, Germany and the United States in serious film production.
Many effects were impossible or impractical to perform in theater plays and thus added more magic to the experience of movies. Technical improvements added length (reaching 60 minutes for a feature film in 1906), synchronized sound recording (mainstream since the end of the 1920s), color (mainstream since the 1930s) and 3D (mainstream in theaters in the early 1950s and since the 2000s).
cinemas between the 1910s and the late 1960s), musicals (mainstream since the late 1920s) and pornographic films (experiencing a Golden Age during the 1970s). ==Before 1895== Film as an art form has drawn on several earlier traditions in the fields such as (oral) storytelling, literature, theatre and visual arts.
Griffiths' groundbreaking epic, The Birth of a Nation, the famous 1920 film Dr.
The American industry, or "Hollywood", as it was becoming known after its new geographical center in California, gained the position it has held, more or less, ever since: film factory for the world and exporting its product to most countries on earth. By the 1920s, the United States reached what is still its era of greatest-ever output, producing an average of 800 feature films annually, or 82% of the global total (Eyman, 1997).
The technical problems were resolved by 1923. Illustrated songs were a notable exception to this trend that began in 1894 in vaudeville houses and persisted as late as the late 1930s in film theaters.
The American situation led to a world-wide boom in the production and exhibition of films from 1906 onwards. Movie theaters became popular entertainment venues and social hubs in the early 20th century, much like cabarets and other theaters. Until 1927, most motion pictures were produced without sound.
By the end of 1929, Hollywood was almost all-talkie, with several competing sound systems (soon to be standardized).
Many effects were impossible or impractical to perform in theater plays and thus added more magic to the experience of movies. Technical improvements added length (reaching 60 minutes for a feature film in 1906), synchronized sound recording (mainstream since the end of the 1920s), color (mainstream since the 1930s) and 3D (mainstream in theaters in the early 1950s and since the 2000s).
The technical problems were resolved by 1923. Illustrated songs were a notable exception to this trend that began in 1894 in vaudeville houses and persisted as late as the late 1930s in film theaters.
Cultural reasons were also a factor in countries like China and Japan, where silents co-existed successfully with sound well into the 1930s, indeed producing what would be some of the most revered classics in those countries, like Wu Yonggang's The Goddess (China, 1934) and Yasujirō Ozu's I Was Born, But...
The top actors of the era are now thought of as the classic film stars, such as Clark Gable, Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Greta Garbo, and the greatest box office draw of the 1930s, child performer Shirley Temple. ===Creative impact of sound=== Creatively, however, the rapid transition was a difficult one, and in some ways, film briefly reverted to the conditions of its earliest days.
Universal Pictures began releasing gothic horror films like Dracula and Frankenstein (both 1931).
(See also Bollywood.) At this time, American gangster films like Little Caesar and Wellman's The Public Enemy (both 1931) became popular.
The first audiovisual piece that was completely realized with this technique was the short of Walt Disney "Flowers and Trees", directed by Burt Gillett in 1932.
Most obviously, the musical film was born; the first classic-style Hollywood musical was The Broadway Melody (1929) and the form would find its first major creator in choreographer/director Busby Berkeley (42nd Street, 1933, Dames, 1934).
In 1933, RKO Pictures released Merian C.
Dialogue now took precedence over "slapstick" in Hollywood comedies: the fast-paced, witty banter of The Front Page (1931) or It Happened One Night (1934), the sexual double entrendres of Mae West (She Done Him Wrong, 1933) or the often subversively anarchic nonsense talk of the Marx Brothers (Duck Soup, 1933).
Cultural reasons were also a factor in countries like China and Japan, where silents co-existed successfully with sound well into the 1930s, indeed producing what would be some of the most revered classics in those countries, like Wu Yonggang's The Goddess (China, 1934) and Yasujirō Ozu's I Was Born, But...
Most obviously, the musical film was born; the first classic-style Hollywood musical was The Broadway Melody (1929) and the form would find its first major creator in choreographer/director Busby Berkeley (42nd Street, 1933, Dames, 1934).
Bogart would star in 36 films between 1934 and 1942 including John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941), one of the first films now considered a classic film noir.
Walt Disney, who had previously been in the short cartoon business, stepped into feature films with the first English-speaking animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; released by RKO Pictures in 1937.
Thus began what is now often called "The Golden Age of Hollywood", which refers roughly to the period beginning with the introduction of sound until the late 1940s.
Major films of this type during the 1940s included Bicycle Thieves, Rome, Open City, and La Terra Trema.
In 1952 Umberto D was released, usually considered the last film of this type. In the late 1940s, in Britain, Ealing Studios embarked on their series of celebrated comedies, including Whisky Galore!, Passport to Pimlico, Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Man in the White Suit, and Carol Reed directed his influential thrillers Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol and The Third Man.
In 1941, RKO Pictures released Citizen Kane made by Orson Welles.
Bogart would star in 36 films between 1934 and 1942 including John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941), one of the first films now considered a classic film noir.
1. In 1943, Ossessione was screened in Italy, marking the beginning of Italian neorealism.
These existed alongside more flamboyant films like Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944) and A Matter of Life and Death (1946), as well as Laurence Olivier's 1944 film Henry V, based on the Shakespearean history Henry V.
The Actor's Studio was founded in October 1947 by Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, and Cheryl Crawford, and the same year Oskar Fischinger filmed Motion Painting No.
Many effects were impossible or impractical to perform in theater plays and thus added more magic to the experience of movies. Technical improvements added length (reaching 60 minutes for a feature film in 1906), synchronized sound recording (mainstream since the end of the 1920s), color (mainstream since the 1930s) and 3D (mainstream in theaters in the early 1950s and since the 2000s).
Sound ended the necessity of interruptions of title cards, revolutionized the narrative possibilities for filmmakers, and became an integral part of moviemaking. Popular new media, including television (mainstream since the 1950s), [video] (mainstream since the 1980s) and internet (mainstream since the 1990s) influenced the distribution and consumption of films.
Film production usually responded with content to fit the new media, and with technical innovations (including widescreen (mainstream since the 1950s), 3D and 4D film) and more spectacular films to keep theatrical screenings attractive. Systems that were cheaper and more easily handled (including 8mm film, video and smartphone cameras) allowed for an increasing number of people to create films of varying qualities, for any purpose (including [movies] and video art).
David Lean was also rapidly becoming a force in world cinema with Brief Encounter and his Dickens adaptations Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger would experience the best of their creative partnership with films like Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes. ==1950–1959== The House Un-American Activities Committee investigated Hollywood in the early 1950s.
The demise of the "studio system" spurred the self-commentary of films like Sunset Boulevard (1950) and The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). In 1950, the Lettrists avante-gardists caused riots at the Cannes Film Festival, when Isidore Isou's Treatise on Slime and Eternity was screened.
In 1952 Umberto D was released, usually considered the last film of this type. In the late 1940s, in Britain, Ealing Studios embarked on their series of celebrated comedies, including Whisky Galore!, Passport to Pimlico, Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Man in the White Suit, and Carol Reed directed his influential thrillers Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol and The Third Man.
After their criticism of Charlie Chaplin and split with the movement, the Ultra-Lettrists continued to cause disruptions when they showed their new hypergraphical techniques. The most notorious film is Guy Debord's Howls for Sade of 1952. Distressed by the increasing number of closed theatres, studios and companies would find new and innovative ways to bring audiences back.
Cinemascope, which would remain a 20th Century Fox distinction until 1967, was announced with 1953's The Robe.
cinemas between the 1910s and the late 1960s), musicals (mainstream since the late 1920s) and pornographic films (experiencing a Golden Age during the 1970s). ==Before 1895== Film as an art form has drawn on several earlier traditions in the fields such as (oral) storytelling, literature, theatre and visual arts.
Cinemascope, which would remain a 20th Century Fox distinction until 1967, was announced with 1953's The Robe.
cinemas between the 1910s and the late 1960s), musicals (mainstream since the late 1920s) and pornographic films (experiencing a Golden Age during the 1970s). ==Before 1895== Film as an art form has drawn on several earlier traditions in the fields such as (oral) storytelling, literature, theatre and visual arts.
Sound ended the necessity of interruptions of title cards, revolutionized the narrative possibilities for filmmakers, and became an integral part of moviemaking. Popular new media, including television (mainstream since the 1950s), [video] (mainstream since the 1980s) and internet (mainstream since the 1990s) influenced the distribution and consumption of films.
Sound ended the necessity of interruptions of title cards, revolutionized the narrative possibilities for filmmakers, and became an integral part of moviemaking. Popular new media, including television (mainstream since the 1950s), [video] (mainstream since the 1980s) and internet (mainstream since the 1990s) influenced the distribution and consumption of films.
The trend thrived best in India, where the influence of the country's traditional song-and-dance drama made the musical the basic form of most sound films (Cook, 1990); virtually unnoticed by the Western world for decades, this Indian popular cinema would nevertheless become the world's most prolific.
In the case of the U.S., some historians credit sound with saving the Hollywood studio system in the face of the Great Depression (Parkinson, 1995).
The American industry, or "Hollywood", as it was becoming known after its new geographical center in California, gained the position it has held, more or less, ever since: film factory for the world and exporting its product to most countries on earth. By the 1920s, the United States reached what is still its era of greatest-ever output, producing an average of 800 feature films annually, or 82% of the global total (Eyman, 1997).
1929 was a watershed year: William Wellman with Chinatown Nights and The Man I Love, Rouben Mamoulian with Applause, Alfred Hitchcock with Blackmail (Britain's first sound feature), were among the directors to bring greater fluidity to talkies and experiment with the expressive use of sound (Eyman, 1997).
Many effects were impossible or impractical to perform in theater plays and thus added more magic to the experience of movies. Technical improvements added length (reaching 60 minutes for a feature film in 1906), synchronized sound recording (mainstream since the end of the 1920s), color (mainstream since the 1930s) and 3D (mainstream in theaters in the early 1950s and since the 2000s).
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