Pre/Early Cinema

Pre-Cinema

George Eastman: George Eastman was an inventor who sold the very first camera to the common person in 1888. Due to his efforts many around America were able to engage in the art of photography. His camera was so popular His slogan was “You push the button, we do the rest.” The reasoning for this is because many cameras and other devices of the time were so complicated you need to understand how it operates in its completeness. 

Persistence of Vision: Persistence of Vision in its essence a lie to ourselves. The trick is to show many images quickly in order to have one image stay on a human retina so then the next image can reach it quickly. This technique allows a person viewing a film to not notice a gap between the images so it looks like there is a picture with constant movement, but it really is only a series of non-moving images. This technique is also used in every film, video, and zoom camera meeting.

Eadweard Muybridge: Eadweard Muybridge used his photography skills to settle a debate on if a horse could have all four hooves off the ground, and what he did was set up an array of cameras to take multiple pictures of a horse as it ran. This then did show that a horse could have all of its hooves off the ground, but it showed an effect of the horse running. Then after killing his cheating wife’s lover and coming out of hiding in Central America he then makes a set of photographs that are placed onto glass plates. These glass plates are engineered to allow projection through them, thus creating some of the first motion pictures. Some of these films were about mundane tasks such as Woman Walking Downstairs, but he then transferred to nude art and started making films like Nude Woman Pouring Water on Another Woman. Muybridge then went on tour and showed these films around America becoming popular because of his work, and the technology that created his art.

Thomas Edison: Thomas Edison made a camera that was able to take a sequence of pictures with only one film load. This new type of camera had a smaller gauge and also moved horizontally through a camera. This however was later changed by William Kennedy Laurie DIckson who worked with Edison to make the camera be 35-millimeter width and to have the motion move vertically through the camera. This new movement allowed for the films to be captured at a rate of 40 frames per second. The common standard was slowed down later to 16 frames per second for silent films and 24 frames per second for sounds. This new camera would then be later called the Kinetograph, and the mechanism to view these films would be known as the Kinetoscope, and the Kinetoscope would use a peephole type of viewing experience while looking down into it.

Lumiere Brothers: Lumiere Brothers used the fact that the patent that Thomas Edison had only coverage in America to their advantage. These brothers then “reinvented” film in France and had their first film showcase workers leaving their factory. This was mainly an ad for the factory, but it did help elevate the film world because of the use of miese-en-scene. This ad looked way more purposeful and interesting than what Edison’s company made using the Kinetoscope.

(Lewis, pg.4-11)

American Film Industry

Biograph:Biograph was a company that became Edison’s first rival company. One of the founders of this company was Dickson who used to work under Edison beforehand. The reason that this company became a competitor is because of its size being in 70mm. This then allowed not only a bigger image, but also a cleaner one as well when compared to Edison’s films. Biograph also researched camera movement and placed a camera onto a railroad car. This allowed for cleaner camera positions and consistent camera movement instead of having a static camera or an unstable handled version.

MPPC: The MPPC is known as the Motion Picture Patents Company, This was formed with Edison and 9 of his rivals. MPPC exploited crucial industry patents on film technology in order to set prices and to police distribution of foreign made films. In other words the MPPC was a corporate conglomerate in the film industry that allowed them to force how film was supposed to be shown and used in America. MPPC owned and controlled technology and raw materials that made films. They were even known to put independent film companies out of business. Independent companies were able to start to break their way into the film industry via the MPPC v. IMP court case. Which allowed a beater type camera to be used and then when the US government went to break up MPPC, they had already lost their hold on the film industry.

(Lewis, pg.18-24)

Major Filmmakers in Early American Cinema

Edwin Porter: Edwin Porter was a former telegraph operator and an electrical engineer who worked for the navy, before he started working as a Vitagraph operator. Porter made many films, but the one that made him noticeable to Edison was Life of an American Fireman (1902). This film was a documentary about firemen and it featured a multishot story, and this was one of the first successful efforts of having a story be strung together from different types of shots (close ups, outdoor action long shots, and more). Porter also employed crosscutting in this film showing how editing can be used to establish the space of the story/film’s world. Porter then went on to make one of the first westerns known as The Great Train Robbery which had multiple overlapping stationary camera shots. Porter had these shots alternated to create simultaneous action, thus creating one of the first films to have used juxtaposition. When these shots are shown separately they do not have much meaning, but when used together they give themselves meaning in context.

D.W.Griffith: D.W.Griffith made a film called The Birth of a Nation which it did take America by storm, but it did portray African American horribly and showed the KKK as a positive light and made it harder for race equality to be a thing in America. Griffith however did use many technical innovations such as close ups and crosscutting. These techniques showed that a person could communicate through a film and it was called Cinematic Language.

Alice Guy and Gene Gauntier: Alice guy made a film known as The Making of an American Citizen, and it can be regarded as an early feminist film since it deals with domestic violence, and the husband who was abusing his wife was punished for his behavior. This film was a success in America which paved the way for many other women in early Hollywood. One woman was the successful actress Gene Gauntier. She had more than forty writing credits, and made many melodramas. Some of these films are The Slave to Drink (1909), Why Girls Leave Home (1907), and The Romance of a Trained Nurse (1910). These early studies thought that melodramas were a genre that women favored, and the owners of Gauntiers studio thought the same.

(Lewis, pg.25-35)

Silent Era

Studio Industry being born

Irving Thalberg: Irving Thalberg whipped the west coast studio of Universal into shape when he was promoted at 19 years old. Irving had a natural understanding of how the movie business was supposed to operate. Irving was restricted by his boss Laemmle since he wanted bigger budgets in order to take advantage of the market. Laemmle stuck to the idea of balanced projects, and this frustrated Irving so he left to go to MGM to work for Louis B. Mayer. Thalberg became the reason that MGM succeeded and became the “boy wonder” of the silent era. Thalberg, also inspired others to leave Universal at the time since he was the first in a long line of departures from that studio.

Douglas Fairbanks: Fairbanks was a swashbuckling hero in The Three Musketeers (1921), Robin Hood(1922), and more action films. He led to be like many stars of western early films and made himself to be a popular American film type with the characteristics of rugged, fiercely independent, and instinctive. Fairbanks also had an off-screen romance with Mary Pickford and many called it the American fantasy since they were both rich, fun, and happy celebrity couple.

MPPDA and The Hays Office: with how many Hollywood movie star scandals there was a major cry for order was asked for by the public. The MPPDA was formed (Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America) and this organization was chosen to be run by Will Hays. MPPDA would be used to censor films and to regulate what could be shown on a film, and the film industry used Hays clean public image to make the movie industry legitimate. Hays did not just want to make the films clean, but to establish the MPPDA as a strong industry organization. (lewis, pg.46-53)

Movie Making and Movie Makers

Cecil B. DeMille: DeMille was a director who constantly made the most entertaining movies during the silent era. DeMille always made movies that audiences wanted to see, thus many critics and historians made him seem as a panderer to many low brow audiences. His work is constantly seen as frequently engaging and stylistically interesting when compared to other silent era film makers.

Erich von Stroheim:Stroheim made up a fake backstory when he arrived in Hollywood about how he was an Austrian aristocrat in exile and he constantly played into it to perfection. Even though he was constantly lying he was a good filmmaker and he grew in popularity. His directing style leaned more towards cinematic realism and he had a strict focus to detail, and this was new to filmmaking at that time. He also liked to film more gritty films about the lives of a poor person and to show how life really was for everyone.

F.W. Murnau: before Murnau even arrived in Hollywood he was a respected director for his popular films overseas. His first American film Sunrise (1927) is a melodrama that fits into a very successful genre with signature mise en scene, with an expressionist style. This film won Murnau an Oscar for Best Picture, Uniqueness, and Artistic Production.

Mauritz Stiller and Greta Garbo: Stiller was the one who was originally hired by MGM, but the Swedish actress Garbo was the one who really sold their team to MGM and got them hired. Their team promised MGM sexier and more stylish films like the ones in Europe. However Stiller could not follow the Hollywood system and instead the first film that Stiller tried to film, The Temptress (1926) was changed to Niblo to finish directing the film.

Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich: After Stiller failed to finish directing another film Sternberg finished the film The Street of Sin (1928) for him. This set his career off in directing and his career became entangled with Marlene Dietrich. Sternberg was already a well renowned filmmaker before he met Dietrich and they helped influence the gritty realist style that many gangster films of the early sound era used.

(Lewis Pg.53-71)

Golden Age of Film Comedy

Charlie Chaplin: Before working in films as an actor he worked in slapstick comedy on the english stage in brittan. Due to his previous stage performances he made the transition to films very easy. In his films he was known for his physical comedy and became so popular that he was making $700,000 annually. But when he went to work for Essanay, Chaplin moved away from just physical comedy to a more political character in his films, thus his acting had multiple forms of comedy in it. His first important film was The Gold Rush (1925) which was a major success for comedy films, commercially, and artistically. Chaplin also worked with movies into the sound era, and insisted his work transcended technological and social changes. His three films in the sound era looked to be in the past and dated. Chaplin’s last success was the film The Great Dictator (1940) which was a political satire and made fun of hitler.

Buster Keaton: He worked with his parents on a stage when he was young, but he got his first big part in film via an Arbuckle short. In the short Keaton is getting tossed around from a glued hat to his head and he keeps a stone faced expression the entire time. After 2 years of working with Arbuckle he got his own production studio and became a comedy star in his own right for his stone faced expression. Many of the films that Buster Keaton would be in next he would be in an extreme scenario and he held a stone faced expression which made many audiences laugh. As the silent era was ending Keaton signed with MGM, and the studio prohibited dangerous scenes and made Keaton follow the script. This made Keaton become depressed and became an alcoholic.

(Lewis pg.78-94)

Works Cited

Lewis, Jon. American Film: A History. 2nd ed., 2021.