Development of Early Film

Development of Early Film

Development of Early Film

Introduction

The story of filmmaking moves as far back as the 1860's when optical apparatus like lanterns were utilised to display images in fast sequence, giving the illusion of motion. Through the last hundred years or so, filmmaking has evolved from easy moving drawn pictures to tinted moving images of the genuine world with melodies and sound.

In the best of the latest publications on Godard, the Michael Temple and JamesS. Williams edited The Cinema Alone, Temple and Williams condense the auteur's latest preoccupations with movies and movie history as pursues "[they are] rather standard fare: the purity of sources, the infinite promise of invention, the compact between Méliès and Lumière, document and fiction, the betrayal of cinema's well liked objective and scientific job by Hollywood and scene, the death of the silents at the hands of the talkies, the ethical irresponsibility of movies at crucial instants of up to date history (Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Vietnam, Bosnia), the cancerous disperse of global TV, the gradually successive deaths of distinct national cinemas, and so on." When it becomes acceptable for supporters of JLG to take it as granted that he has been assisting up benchmark fare (even in periods only of his own work) these past years, one starts to suspect that there has been a power move and that detractors now believe themselves to be in control.

According to Gunning, both Melies and the Lumiere Brothers are similar by means that the films are used for entertainment and to attract viewers.

In the Melies film there is an actor performing with dramatic expression in a non factual manner. The Lumiere Brothers film does not consist of an actor performing, yet there is a sense of unreality in the film by viewing the whole event from a omniscient point of view. Both films were made to be viewed as entertainment and create 'tricks' to the audience to create the cinema of attractions.

Both forms of cinema focus on cinema attraction or entertainment. Gunning states that early cinema can't be compared with documentation films.

In Tom Gunning's article “The Cinema of Attractions” he observes the trend of “new cinema” during the early 20th century. His focus revolves around two styles of cinema, the reality and non-actuality, which are defined by their creators Lumiere and Melies. Lumiere's work is defined by its reality, the idea of taking a camera into the real world and capturing its essence, contrary to Melies who's style is characterized by it's “trickery” in the editing process. Gunning, aware of these differences, goes on to say how these two films are similar in that they both propose the “cinema of attraction.”

He writes, “one can unite them in a conception that sees cinema less as a way of telling stories than as a way of presenting a series of views to an audience; fascinating because of their illusory power and exoticism.'. This is to say that the films both hold their own power and illusion because they both attract ...