Early film

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• Conception
  • Late nineteenth century, shortly after wireless telegraphy
  • Idea: A strip of perforated film run across light source
    • With high-speed shutter, series of images would appear to be continuous
    • Edison patents the Kinetoscope in 1891, shown publicly two years later
    • Intended for individual viewing but technique adopted by early filmmakers
  • Idea: projection of film
    • Patented by Lumiere brothers in France (1895) to compete with Edison's concept
    • First cinema show films:
      • Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory
      • The Demolition of a Wall
      • Watering the Gardener
• Nickelodeons
  • The first cinema, tickets cost a nickel
  • First established in Pittsburgh (1905), where a nickelodeon played The Great Train Robbery
  • 8,000 in U.S. by 1908
  • Usually ~100 person audience, largely middle and lower classes
  • Live music played, often sing alongs
  • By 1910 began being replaced by larger theaters
• Hollywood cinema conceived
  • Initially, movie production firms were centered in NYC
  • Prior to WWI, independent producers moved operations to Hollywood
    • Largely for climate, space
  • The Squaw Man by Cecil B. DeMille filmed (1913)
    • First feature-length film (74 min)
• D.W. Griffith
• First pioneer of American film and directing
  • Between 1908 and 1913, directed 450 films
  • First introduced the long shot and the close-up
  • From Southern upbringing, reflected racial attitudes
  • The Birth of a Nation (1915)
    • The first masterpiece of American film
    • Follows brothers, families during Civil War
    • Glorifies the KKK, denigrates blacks
    • Blacks dominate Southern culture, whites are victimized and saved by the Klan
  • Watch clips:
  • Clip #1: The portrayal of the South Carolina legislature controlled by blacks
  • Clip #2: A white family is attacked by a black gang, rescued by Klan

Material

Edison's Kinetoscope