HISTORY OF FILM

Late 19th Century

– Earliest camera – hole in darkened box will cast a moving image on the wall

– Italians called this Camera Obscura during the Renaissance

– Persistence of vision – retina retains a vision for a fraction of a second. A series of still images can appear that they are moving.

– Daguerreotypes – permanent images on treated metal plates

– The combination of these produced “motion pictures.

August and Louis Lumiere

• 2 Frenchmen are credited with inventing the first device to record and project motion pictures for a theatre audience in 1895 – • Called the cinematographe.

George Melies• (Hugo)• A magician, used stop motion

photography to make things look like they disappeared. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV0xm3OXdj0&kw=stop+frame+animation&ad=12452695432&feature=pyv

Stop Motion• Stop motion (also known as stop action) is an

animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own.

• The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence.

• Clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Motion animation using clay is called clay animation or clay-mation.

Melies Examples–A Trip to the Moon, 1902 http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYRemE9Oeso&ob=av1n

–The Palace of Arabian Nights, 1905

The Rise of a New Art Form

–People wanted cheap entertainment through WWI.–After the war more full length

feature films were made and became more acceptable to the middle class.

Hollywood Moguls

• Carl Laemmle – Universal-low budget films, Westerns and horror• Adolph Zukor – Paramount-witty, sophisticated

European drama• Jesse Lasky – Paramount• Samuel Goldwyn MGM-middle class appeal• Louis B. Mayer - MGM• Jack Warner – Warner Bros-social documentaries

Silent movies came first: 1920’s

•Comedies•Tragedies

DirectorsDD

–Cecil B. Demille–King Vidor–Henry King–Erich von Stroheim, Charlie Chaplin

•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmc_3VW3-ag&feature=relatedActors

Actors–Clara Bow–Pola Negri–Gloria Swanson–Greta Garbo–John Barrymore–Buster Keaton

Examples of early films

–http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmc_3VW3-ag&feature=relatedActors–http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2

MUBrClhgks Charlie Chaplin,1920–http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUt

g7kfB74M Buster Keaton, 1920

Germany, 1926

–Films were haunting » Horror» Psychological » Social themes

Russia

–Documentaries–Moved away from Hollywood’s traditional story lines

Sound introduced in the late 1920’s!!

1930’s- 80 million people go to the movies every week

–More than in the 1960’s (20 million)–Great Depression put people out of work–People wanted to escape their problems cheaply

Genres reflected the times

»Gangster»Musicals»Comedies»Depression heroes created•Toughness•ethnicity

“Modern Times”» http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3luc0fczgM0

“Modern Times” 1936» Modern Times portrays Chaplin as a factory worker employed on

an assembly line. After being subjected to such indignities as being force-fed by a "modern" feeding machine and an accelerating assembly line where Chaplin screws nuts at an ever-increasing rate onto pieces of machinery, he suffers a mental breakdown that causes him to run amok, throwing the factory into chaos. Chaplin is sent to a hospital. Following his recovery, the now unemployed Chaplin is arrested as an instigator in a Communist demonstration. He was waving a red flag that fell off a delivery truck (Chaplin intended to return the flag to the driver). In jail, he accidentally eats smuggled cocaine, mistaking it for salt. In his subsequent delirious state he walks into a jailbreak and knocks out the convicts. He is hailed a hero and is released.

“Mata Hari”» http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5DVB3iIxAw “ Mata Hari”

• Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Geertruida "Margreet" Zelle (7 August 1876 - 15 October 1917), a Dutch exotic dancer, courtesan, and accused spy[1] who was executed by firing squad in France under charges of espionage for Germany during World War I

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oClFiO7LMkc

France joined the business and made many contributions

•Golden age of screen diversity•Musicals•Industrialization

Cynicism and Post-War Decline

•WWII – darker themes•Pessimism

Citizen Kane – Kane http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqz2rekeYMc

• Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), an enormously wealthy media proprietor, has been living alone in Florida in his vast palatial estate Xanadu for the last years of his life, with a "No trespassing" sign on the gate. He dies in a bed while holding a snow globe and utters "Rosebud..."; the globe slips from his dying hand and smashes. Kane's death then becomes sensational news around the world. Newsreel reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland) tries to find out about Kane's private life and, in particular, to discover the meaning behind his last word.

Post WWI–European Studios were in shambles.

Hollywood made serious movies – 1940’s

–Anti-semitism–Racism–Juvenille delinquency–Corruption in sports

1950’s–Westerns»http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

QKLvKZ6nIiA, High Noon

–Comedies–Musicals»http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

iMO72_TF9JY , South Pacific

1960’s Rebels!–Audience was younger, more educated, more affluent–Movies were more sophisticated»Bonnie and Clyde http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKWTAFeoVOc

1970’s–Unpopular war (Vietnam)–Inflation–Disaster films (Airport)–Gangster films (Godfather)–Horror (Exorcist)–Space (Star Wars)–Film schools were emerging – “no

more learn on the job”

1980’s Children of Rebels – Back to Tradition

–Reagan years – conservative politics–Rugged individualism–Optimism – Upbeat»Back to the Future

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yosuvf7Unmg»

–Mythic Heroes»Rocky»Terminator

Some directors were thinking “outside the box”

–Quirky imagination and ironic wit–Blue Velvet, Reseviour Dogs, Platoon, ET

1990’s – Diversified directors, actors and audiences

– Speilberg – ET and Close Encounters in the 80”s» Now diversified subjects - Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s

List– Scorcese – urban tension (Goodfellas, Gangs of NY), but made

some gentler movies (The Age of Innocence) – Tom Hanks (Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia)

» http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ct8rrZgUn8» http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTFMGqew6QA» http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZgKo46X8CI

– Independent Film Makers– Influenced by videos– Sequels– African Americans, Women, Latinos starting to emerge

2000’s – more people getting into film-making

–Hand-held cameras–Natural lighting–Shooting on location–Globally more sophisticated – Cut

across national boundaries – internationalism (ex, Red Violin) – companies from Italy, Austria, England and japan cooperated with US. And Canada.

What this historical account is not!

•This is not a technological history•This is not a “Social Movement” history of film

What it is!•This is a general overview of how it started and how far we’ve come!