Silents Are Golden: The Growing Pains of (Very) Early Cinema

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. 

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.

…

–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.