The Magical Attractions of Early Cinema

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The Magical Attractions of Early Cinema The
International Expansion of Cinema
Jaakko Seppälä
Homepage http//www.helsinki.fi/taitu/tet/Jaakko/
WorldFilmHistory1.html
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Brighton and After

• For decades early cinema was a neglected field of
  study
• Early cinema was seen as an elementary stage of
  cinematic evolution
• International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF)
  held a symposium in Brighton in 1978
• The event brought together film archivists and
  film historians around a common purpose
• Early cinema began to be understood as a period
  that possessed a different conception of space,
  time and narrative form from the way in which
  these issues were approached in the later
  classical cinema

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The Cinema of Attractions

• For a long time the history of early cinema was
  theorised under the hegemony of narrative films
• Early cinema (films made before 1906/1907) is now
  understood as the cinema of attractions
• This cinema celebrates its ability to show
  something
• In the first few years the film projector was the
  attraction
• Then the demonstration of the possibilities of
  cinema continued in films
• What ever the attraction is, it is of interest in
  itself

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Actualities and Trick Films

• Many early films are non-fiction films
  actualities
• These films use footage of real events
• Topics of actualities parades, sports,
  shipwrecks etc.
• News events were covered on location where they
  happened but also recreated in studios
• Line between fact and fiction was not sharply
  drawn
• Trick films are cinematic magic tricks
• These films are essentially devoid of plot
• Special effects were used to show what was
  possible

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Early Story Films

• First story films were comic skits
• Before 1903 mainly single-shot films
• In many of these films there is no sense of depth
• Longer multi-shot films became common from 1903
• Reasons artistic innovation, product
  differentiation, enabled to sell more feet of
  film, more efficient to shoot films in studios
  than to make actualities on location
• Simple narratives that follow action in linear
  fashion
• New multi-shot film genre the chase film
• Common and popular genre internationally in
  1903-1905

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The Gay Shoe Clerk (1903)
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Contextualising Early Films

• Early films need to be studied in the context of
  the screen
• The exhibitor, rather than the image-maker,
  generally held editorial control and was
  responsible for what is now called postproduction
• The exhibitor bought single-shot films and
  created film programs
• Lecturing, vocal acting, music, sound effects
  etc.
• Early story films were often based on well known
  myths, fairy tales and nursery rhymes
• Audiences were familiar with these (prior
  knowledge)

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Tinted film
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Toned film
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Blue Tone and Rose Tint
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Stencil Colour
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Nickelodeons

• Itinerant movie-show people played an important
  role in the creation of audiences for films
  outside the largest cities
• In the United States storefront nickelodeons in
  large cities began operating in 1904 and 1905
• Soon nickelodeons opened in every larger town
• Preconditions film production on a large scale
  and film exchanges
• In 1910 26 million Americans visited nickelodeons
  every week (mass entertainment)

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A Nickelodeon
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The International Expansion

• Before the turn of the decade cinema was truly an
  international phenomenon
• Films travelled freely across boarders
• A typical film show consisted of films made in
  various countries
• There were no national cinemas and it did not
  much matter where a film was made
• Filmmakers influenced each other
• This was an era of experimental filmmaking

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Georges Méliès (France)

• Stage Magician (Theatre Robert Houdin)
• In 1896 Méliès bought a projector from R. W Paul
  and built his own film camera
• Made films for his own company Star Film
• The master of the trick film
• Stop motion
• Superimpositions
• In many ways these films are excessively
  theatrical
• Méliès was internationally successful until 1905

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Georges Méliès (1861-1938)
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Pathé Frères (France)

• Pathé Frères was formed in 1896
• The company produced film equipments and films
• Pathé camera was the most popular film camera in
  the world before the 1920s
• The company produced all kinds of films but in
  the early 1900s it was best known for its story
  films (fréeries)
• Pathé became the first vertically integrated film
  company in the world when it opened its own film
  theatre in 1906
• The largest and most important film company in
  the world before the Great War

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Film dArt

• Film dArt was a small company founded in 1908 by
  Paul Latiffe
• The company had good connections to the theatre
  world
• Film dArt produced prestigious art films films
  for upper class audiences
• Lassassinat du duc de Guise (1908)
• Legitimate actors, scripts written by famous
  dramatists and original scores by well known
  composers
• Film as art
• In 1911 the company was in debt and had to be sold

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British Cinema

• British cinema had an influential and innovative
  beginning
• Silent British films made after 1905 have been
  neglected (and/or considered bad)
• A large number of phantom ride films in early
  1900s
• Dolly shot films inspired by Lumière films
• The Brighton School (Williamson Smith)
• Ingenuity in editing and shooting practices
• Rescued by Rover (1905)

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Pendlebury Colliery 1900
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Italy

• Fiction film production began in 1905
• In the early 1910s Italy was one of the major
  powers in world cinema
• Early film production actualities, historical
  films and slapstick comedies
• Soon Italy was known for historical epics
• The zenith of achievement Cabiria (1914)
• First feature films were made in the early 1910s
• Diva films (Lyda Borelli Francesca Bertini)
• Strongman films (Maciste)

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Lyda Borelli
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Bartolomeo Pagano