1. Brief lectures in Media History Chapter 5 Cinema history (8 of 15)

2. This lecture is about Who invented movies Controversies and impacts Why did movies move to Hollywood? The silent film era What happened when sound arrived Golden age of film 1930s Film in War 1940s Film fights TV 1950s 3. How do we see cinema history? A succession of inventions? An extension of theater? A shared social experience? A business? An art? A problem of regulation ? A progression of camera, sound and special effects techniques? All of the above 4. Still projectors go back to 1650s 5. Early mechanical animation A childrens toy, also called Zoetrope (US) and Daedalum (Britain). It relied on persistence of vision to create the optical illusion of motion. 6. Eadweard Muybridge 1877It started with a bet Do all four hooves leave the ground when a horse gallops? Its hard to tell if youre looking at the horse.San Francisco photographer Muybridge was brought in by California governor Leland Stanford in 1877 to settle the bet. He used trip wires and glass plate photos. The governor won, as you can see. 7. Muybridge & Edison 1888 8. Edison develops peep show Kinetoscope system 1893 For individual viewers (note viewing port at the top) 9. Filmed in the Black Maria 10. Romance was an early themeFirst kiss on film 1896 -- May Irwin and John C. Rice staged the first kiss ever seen on film for Thomas Edison in the film studio called the Black Maria in Menlo Park, New Jersey in 1896. Edisons short subjects were played on hand-cranked personal projectors in Nickelodeon halls. 11. Kinetoscopes(not Nickelodeons) 12. Meanwhile in France Auguste and Louis Lumire develop the Cinmatographe system for theaters. They were able to get the picture out of the box. 1895. 13. Auguste and Louis Lumire My brother, in one night, invented the cinematographe -- Auguste 14. Nickelodeon 15. Early film was like theater There was one stationary camera set in front of the stageIn George Mliss 1902 Trip to the Moon, there are no closeups, no medium shots, and only a few transitions from one scene to the next. 16. Directors begin to explore the new mediumEdwin S. Porter produced Great Train Robbery 1903, Life of a Fireman Close-ups, location shots, moving camera, time sequences 17. Movie censorship 1908 New York mayor George McClellan Jr. revokes the licenses of 540 corrupt movie theaters. Outrage follows. This sort of treatment can go in Russia, but it cant go in this country, one theater owner responded. Post card, UK, 1910 18. Movie censorship 1910 The first African-American heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson, won a July 1910 match, He beat James Jeffries, a white boxer called the great white hope. A film showing Johnsons victory led to rioting in many US cities and at least eight deaths. The film alarmed racists in US Congress who banned interstate sales of all boxing films in 1912. The ban wasnt lifted until 1940. 19. Fathers of film: Eastman, EdisonGeorge Eastman (left) Kodak camera and films founder -- and Thomas Edison used patents to try to control the movie business. 20. MPPC The Edison Trust Motion picture patents company Included US filmmakers Biograph and Vitagraph, French filmmakers Mlis and Path. Wanted: 1 -- To keep independents from exhibiting in theaters or using patents 2 Censorship of immoral movies . Opposed by founders of Universal, Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox studios Circumvention: They moved from the East coast to Hollywood, where mild weather and distance from the Edison company allowed feature film expansion. 21. MPPC The Edison Trust European films from Mlis and Path ended abruptly with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. 1915, independent producers won United States v. Motion Picture Patents Company. (Anti-trust case). Ended the Edison monopoly on film patents Also 1915, Mutual Film v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, Supreme Court rules that films are not protected by the First Amendment. 22. Independent studios moved to 23. Silent film era Freed from the hobbles of Edisons monopoly, and with competition from European films now halted by World War I, US film makers embarked on an era of innovation and development. 24. Birth of a nation DW Griffith 1915 Nor really about US history Plot centers around post-Civil War KKK vigilante heroismAfrican Americans depicted as drunkards, rapists and murderers Riots broke out across US when film is shown Performances had to be shut down. 25. KKK Racism opposed 26. Sergei Eisenstein: Battleship Potemkin 1925 Brilliant Soviet director finds that cinema has its own language and logicMontage: a compilation of close-ups, jump cuts and relative motion, to convey symbolic meaning or passage of time. 27. Chaplin: cinema super-star Berlin, 1931 -- Frenzied crowds surrounded the hotel and besieged the train station Left wing newspapers celebrated working class genius. Conservative newspapers said he should not be so highly celebrated. Nazi papers were disgusted by the Jewish film clown.So now the political parties were defining themselves in relation to the film star, not the other way around. Corey Ross, Media and the Making of Modern Germany (New York, London: Oxford University Press, 2008). 28. German expressionism 1922 Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 29. Synchronized sound 1927 The Jazz Singer Al Jolson a major hit. Although Jolsons blackface act is offensive by modern standards, it was meant to be clownish and sentimental at the time, and had none of the virulent racism of Birth of a Nation. 30. Animation takes off Walt Disneys synchronized sound experiments were one reason for his success. Steamboat Willie, 1928. 31. Tearing up the sets The Marx Brothers first picture Cocoanuts, shot in New York, 1929. Shot was just the word for it. All they did was point the camera at us while we ran through our old stage version.The director laughed so hard he drowned out everything else on the sound track (they) solved the problem by having the director use hand signals from inside a sound-proof glass booth Harpo Speaks 32. Widespread censorship In France, O de conduite was censored for violence. In the US, the MPPA censored films and kept Americans safe from romance, like the 1933 Czech film Extase. An official board of censors had to approve UK each film. 33. Citizen Kane Satirized life of publisher William Randolph Hearst Produced 1941, suppressed 1942, revived 1960s The RKO movie was directed by Orson Wells, a New York theater director who had become famous for his War of the World Mercury Theater Radio program broadcast in 1938. In the American Film Institutes top 100 movies of all time, Kane is number one. It is a dark movie, full of cinema technique but not geared to modern tastes. 34. Are artists responsible? A glowing 1935 depiction of the Nazi party celebrations in Nuremberg Germany, Leni Riefenstahls Triumph of the Will is considered a classic in technique but a monster for glorifying the subject.Here Riefenstahl and camera crew are getting a ground-level shot for the 1935 film. Ten years later she would face charges at the Nuremburg, and although never convicted of a crime, spent several years in detention. She claimed that artists should not be held responsible for the political problems their art causes. 35. Chaplins take on the NazisThe Great Dictator, 1940, used biting sarcasm and slapstick to attack the cruelty of the Nazi regime. Chaplins moral courage in satirizing Hitler and defending Jewish people should not be underestimated. Few people in 1940 would have predicted the end of Nazi rule only five years later. Asked around that time whether he was Jewish himself, Chaplin said: I do not have that honor. 36. Hollywood studio system Paramount (1912), Columbia (1920), Warner Brothers (1923), MetroGoldwyn-Mayer (1924), RKO Pictures (1928) and 20th- Century Fox (1935) Steady supply of films, stable incomes, expertise Actors managed for benefit of studio Theater block booking (ends in 1948 with Paramount anti-trust suit). 37. Hollywood goes to war Giving a damn Clark Gable, famed for his role as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, became an officer in the Air Corps. After narrowly escaping death in combat, he made a documentary called Combat America that featured interviews with pilots and gunners. Other significant films included Frank Capras Why We Fight series. Also important: Mrs. Miniver(UK) and Casablanca, the best loved film in movie history. 38. Italian Neorealismo19441950s National film movement Stories about the working class Filmed on location Non-professional actors. Rome Open City, Bicycle Thief, Miracle in Milan Impact on French new wave, Polish films, early Bollywood productions 39. Post-war witch hunt Blackballed writer Dalton Trumbo, a screenwriter who was briefly a member of the Communist Party, refused to implicate other Hollywood writers before the House Un-American Activities Committee and served an 11-month jail sentence. He was blackballed (not allowed to work) but brought back in the late 1950s to work on films like Spartacus and Exodus. 40. War reconciliation films WWI Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir) WWII -- Its a Wonderful Life (Capra) Vietnam -- Forrest Gump Cold War -- K-19, Hunt for Red October Berlin Wall -- Goodbye LeninAlso racial reconciliation, 1950s 70s Guess Whos Coming to Dinner, Lilies of the Field, Island in the Sun, Little Big Man 41. Color barriers lower One of the most important aspects of cinema is its ability to humanize and evoke empathy for people in other walks of life, and nowhere did this occur with as much significance as in the evolution of images of African Americans. By providing these insights, Hollywood helped ease the way for the US civil rights movement. 42. Competition from television Movie sales in 1960 were only half of what they were in 1947 Producers reacted by showing things that could not be seen on TV more sex, more violence, more social commentary Hollywood also expanded into TV production Hollywood revenues picked up again to about of what they were at peak. 43. 60s films TV competition let movies be something more -- to both reflect and lead a major shift in world culture, away from patriotism and simple heroics, toward tolerance, introspection and personal growth. The era is often described as postclassical cinema, characterized by the undermining of cultural hubris and devolution into artistic chaos. 44. 60s Blockbusters Epics: Lawrence of Arabia , Spartacus, Magnificent 7, Guns of Navarone Musicals: Camelot, Sound of Music, West Side Story Social: Psycho, Dr. Strangelove, the Graduate, Easy Rider Comedy: Mary Poppins, Producers, Pink Panther Westerns: Good, Bad & Ugly, Misfits Spy: James Bond 45. The evolving hero Sergeant York, (1941) From Here to Eternity (1953) Bridge over the River Kwai (57) Guns of Navarone (1961) Dr. Strangelove (1962) The Dirty Dozen (1967). Moral ambiguity: In The Guns of Navarone, Keith Mallory (Gregory Peck) says: The only way to win a war is to be just as nasty as the enemy. The one thing that worries me is were liable to wake up one morning, and find were even nastier than they are. Sergeant York would never say that. 46. 60s films 47. 70s Blockbusters Epics: Godfather, Jaws, Musicals: Grease, Fiddler on Roof Social: Cuckoos Nest, Catch 22, All Presidents Men Comedy: Rocky Horror, MASH, Monty Python, Animal House Sci-Fi: Star Wars, Young Frankenstein, Alien 48. 80s Blockbusters Epics: Princess Bride, Raiders Lost Ark, Batman Social: Top Gun, Stand by Me, Platoon, Amadeus, Gandhi, Brazil , Comedy: Tootsie, Coming to America, Goonies Sci-Fi: ET, Back to Future, Field of Dreams Musicals: Little Mermaid (Disney) 49. 90s Blockbusters Epics: Jurassic Park, Pvt Ryan, Bravehart, Mummy, Titanic Social: Forest Gump, Schindlers list Comedy: Pretty Woman, Pulp Fiction, Big Liebowski Sci-Fi: Matrix, Terminator Musicals: Disney musicals (Mulan, Beauty & Beast) 50. 2000s Blockbusters Epics: Lord of Rings, Harry Potter, Avitar, Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, Social: Remember the Titans, Brokeback Mountain, V for Vendetta, Inglorious Bastards Sci-Fi: Day after tomorrow, X-men Musicals: Almost famous, 51. Special effects Willis OBrien Lost World, 1925; King Kong, 1933Fritz Lang Metropolis,1927Ray Harryhausen Sinbad 1958; Gulliver 1960; Jason 1963. 52. Stop motion animation cont Like musicals, which are now an animation genre, stop motion is an animation genre.Nick Park creator of Wallace &Gromit 53. Digital special effects John Dykstras computer controlled camera created the new look ofStar Warsin 1977 But the big studios closed special effects units 1970s, missing the digital curve in the road until 1990s when they became a huge part of the medium. Although digital effects are great, make a model first, says JurasicParks Denis Muren: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET5B68eV5DA 54. Effects wrap the mediumAvatar 2009 shot almost entirely on a sound stage with green-screens Zoe Salanda after digital effects (left) and in motion-capture suit (right) 55. Digital revolution in delivery Declining cinema audience with TV, cable, on demand home video Nicholas Negroponte, predicted in 1996 that the first entertainment industry to be displaced by digital transmission technologies would be the video rental business. And it will happen fast, he said. By 2010, video rental stores like Hollywood Video, Blockbuster, MovieStarz and others had filed for bankruptcy. Cinemas now use 4K DCI pixel screens instead of 35 mm film 56. International cinema 21st Century Hollywood now competing with films from Asia and Europe Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Amelie, color-saturated French romance Lagaan, Indian film about poverty Spirited Away, Japanese anime; Slumdog Millionaire Quentin Tarantinos Inglorious Bastards created in German, French and English to appeal to the growing international audience