The Growing Pains of (Very) Early Cinema
It’s easy to assume that “moving pictures” burst onto the scene in the late 19th century all at once. We often imagine that pop culture history can be neatly sliced into “before cinema” and “after cinema,” positive that the traditional forms of stage entertainment swiftly became passe. The truth, of course, is always more complicated. In a 1940 interview, early filmmaker Edwin S. Porter recalled his uncertainty over whether cinema could retain a steady audience until he saw an exciting new film called A Trip to the Moon–which, as we know, was released all the way back in 1902!
Even determining what films count as the “earliest” can be tricky. Should we, for instance, count the pioneering methods of Eadweard Muybridge, who discovered how to photograph an animal’s precise movements one quick shot at a time? What about Étienne-Jules Marey’s similar experiments with his chronophotographic “gun,” which created strips of crisp images of moving animals and people?
Along with the various optical illusion toys and magic lantern shows that were common at the time, these did indeed play a hand in the creation of motion pictures. However, it’s often agreed that the earliest “true” films were the ones shot on light-sensitive strips of material. Thus, French inventor Louis Le Prince may be the strongest contender for the creator of motion pictures as they’re known today. His stubby wooden box-like structure used strips of fragile paper film from the Eastman Kodak Company, and in Leeds, England, he shot some brief footage of family and friends clowning in a backyard. The surviving fragment, Roundhay Garden Scene (1888), is considered the oldest film in the world.
Once we settle on what counts as film, there’s the equally confusing question of credit. Who made the first motion picture camera? Who made the first projector? In the late 19th century patents for innumerable film-related inventions flew like confetti (indeed, patents for every type of invention were legion). During a span of just a few years inventors around the world–especially the U.S., U.K., France and Germany–were feverishly working on cameras, projectors and other movie making accessories, practically stumbling over each other in the rush to corner the market.
Auguste and Louis Lumière, Thomas Edison, William K.-L. Dickson, Grey and Otway Latham, and Max and Emil Skladanowsky are just a few prominent names among these pioneering inventors–and were certainly well aware of each other’s work. Dickson even secretly went behind his boss Edison’s back to help the Latham brothers design their “Latham loop,” a slack loop of film in the motion picture camera that reduces tension on the filmstrip. The Lumière brothers’ first public screening of their projected films in Paris on December 28, 1895, is justly famous, but they were technically beaten to the punch by the Skladanowsky brothers in Germany, who held their first screening in November 1895. They in turn were beaten by the Latham brothers, who exhibited in May.
Can we say, then, that these 1895 screenings opened the floodgate of interest in the brand-new technology of motion pictures? We can, and we might also say that as 1896 was the year that films really took off. The films themselves were simple, of course–very brief and simply capturing dancers dancing, or boxers sparring, or footage of a busy city street. But audiences marveled at how the camera could capture details like smoke rising from a pipe, or leaves waving in the wind–details which couldn’t be captured by still photography. For a time, the sheer novelty of the film itself was exciting enough for amazed audiences around the world.
But behind the scenes, all wasn’t smooth sailing. Competitions over the various patents only grew more fierce. Edison in particular managed to seize control of many of the motion picture camera components and his company frequently started lawsuits with competitors. In the meantime filmmakers themselves were constantly “borrowing” from each other–if one film grew popular then other studios often made their own, identical versions.
a copy of The Countryman and the Cinematograph (1901).
By the early 1900s, films were not only familiar to the general public (thanks mainly to traveling shows and “theaters” set up in rented buildings), but they were so familiar that, strange as it sounds today, the novelty was finally wearing off. The rented “storefront theaters” were having a harder time sustaining business, the films that were formerly a prominent part of vaudeville programs were relegated to being “chasers” (stuck at the very end of the program), and audiences were growing tired of seeing the same types of subjects over and over again. Vaudeville and “legitimate” theater still dominated, and the nickelodeon wouldn’t start popping up until 1905.
But if there was one film that helped breathe a bit of fresh inspiration into the competitive industry, it was George Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon (1902). Running around 15 minutes long, it was one of the lengthier early silents. With its whimsical story of astronomers who travel to the winking, blinking moon and its fantastical hand-colored imagery, it was a treat for both the eyes and the imagination. When the film quickly became a hit around the world, many filmmakers began to realize that story-centric films were the way forward.
By the end of the 1900s, it was clear that motion pictures would not just be a passing fad or a novelty. A fresh new kind of storytelling had emerged, with its own particular language that was evolving every week. There were still years of innovations to come, but fortunately for us, early cinema had largely overcome its growing pains.
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–Lea Stans for Classic Movie Hub
You can read all of Lea’s Silents are Golden articles here.
Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterly and has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.
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