Analysis Of Edward Ross's Cinema Of Attractions

In “A Century of Cinema”, Susan Sontag explains how cinema was cherished by those who enjoyed what cinema offered. Cinema was unlike anything else, it was entertainment that had the audience feeling apart of the film. However, as the years went by, the special feeling regarding cinema went away as those who admired cinema wanted to help expand the experience.

Article Three – Author: David Bordwell / Title of Article: The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film

Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) - Laura Mulvey. Thesis. N.d. N.p.: Laura Mulvey, 1975. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) - Laura Mulvey. NG Communications, 2006. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. .

Although the best reasons for “going to the movies” are to be entertained and eat popcorn, understanding a film is actually quite complex. Movies are not only a reflection of life, they also have the capability of shaping our norms, values, attitudes, and perception of life. Through the media of film, one can find stories of practically anything imaginable and some things unimaginable. Movie-makers use their art to entertain, to promote political agendas, to educate, and to present life as it is, was, or could be. They can present truth, truth as they interpret it, or simply ignore truth altogether. A movie can be a work of fiction, non-fiction, or anything in-between. A film is an artist’s interpretation. What one takes away from a film depends upon how one interprets what has been seen and heard. Understanding film is indeed difficult.

“The point of theatre is transformation: to make an extraordinary event out of ordinary material right in front of an audience 's eyes. Where the germ of the idea came from is pretty much irrelevant. What matters to every theatre maker, I know, is speaking clearly to the audience 'right now. '” This quote by English playwright and screenwriter, Lee Hall, from an essay he published in the Times of London, is central to the connection between theatre and motion picture technology. Since the rise of film in the early twentieth century, these elements have been influencing each other, and working together, to elevate the storytelling and experience of each medium and, in turn, better connecting them to the modern audience. The collaboration of these two mediums has resulted in a new form of theatre, known as digital theatre, that shows “theatrical entertainment does not have to be either purist (involving only ‘live’ actors on stage), or be consumed by the dominant televisual mass media, but can gain from the strengths of both types of communication.”(Masura). Throughout this paper, the intersection of theatre and motion picture technology will be explored through their effect on each other, in storytelling and experience, and the product of their collaboration—digital theatre.

“The biggest mistake we have made is to consider that films are primarily a form of entertainment. The film is the greatest medium since the invention of movable type for exchanging ideas and information, and it is no more at its best in light entertainment than literature is at its best in the light novel.” - Orson Welles

According to (Bates 665), “Cinematic society refers to the 20th century societal formation that recognizes itself via cinematic apparatus,” he points to the chief place that films hold in

For if we account for all of the industrial underpinnings of cinematic production, distribution, and exhibition—from the mines where the metals and minerals that make cameras and projectors are extracted to the factories where this equipment is assembled, from the reliance on aviation and trucking industries to distribute prints to the energy consumed by movie theaters, computers, HDTVs, and other exhibition technologies—it becomes clear that cinema is thoroughly entangled with the major industrial causes of

So, now the question of how they could entertain without offending anyone come into play. Films from this period have been named the "Cinema of attractions" by film scholar Tom Gunning, in part, because they treat show over narrative. The popularity of film in its first decade was for some, a cause for concern. It faced challenges to produce longer pictures, which not only would advance their profitability, but also needed to be narrative, which in turn allowed films to carry ethical and good messages.

Cinema of Attractions is concerned with the ability to display. Attractions wanted to show the ‘here and now’, interacting with its spectator with the aim of satisfying the audience’s curiosity quickly (Gunning, 2004: 44). It displays current events, scenes form everyday life, composed scenes, vaudeville performances and also camera tricks (as pioneered by George Méliès). Cinema of Attractions aims to astonish its audience (Strauven, 1999: 50). through displaying, rather than amusing its audience through narrative content. This is seen in films such as G. Méliès’ ‘ L'homme-orchestre (One Man Band)’ (1900), or his ‘L'homme à la tête de caoutchouc (The Man With The Rubber Head)’ (1901) where the actor(s) constantly address the camera/spectator and the audience is

'Classical Hollywood cinema possesses a style which is largely invisible and difficult for the average spectator to see. The narrative is delivered so effortlessly and efficiently to the audience that it appears to have no source. It comes magically off the screen.'

Gunning goes on to define the cinema of attraction as “a cinema that bases itself on the quality that Leger celebrated: its ability to show something. Contrasted to the voyeuristic aspect of narrative cinema analyzed by Christian Metz, this is an exhibitionist cinema,” (Gunning, 230). It’s a cinema before narrative where the focus lied in testing the boundaries of what was possible with the medium, much like avant-garde today. It’s a cinema where narrative was always second, if even there, to the spectacle of what was possible with the medium. Lumiere’s Demolition of a Wall displays some of the possibilities of the medium quite clearly in its later half when the reel is re-winded to create the effect of the wall rebuilding itself. As Gunning reminds us, we should never forget that “in the earliest years of exhibition the cinema itself was an attraction,” (231). Cinema was defined by the machine instead of the films in this period, and thus the simple fact of being able to see moving pictures was itself astounding. Looking at Maxim Gorky’s first accounts of viewing a motion picture in his article The Kingdom of Shadows, he writes the “extraordinary impression it (cinema) creates is so unique and complex that I doubt my ability to describe it with all its nuances,” (Gorky 7). The people of the

In the world we live in today, anyone can pick up a handheld video camera and record their son’s soccer game or daughter’s school play, but to really capture the beauty of an event takes true talent. It takes the expertise of a cinematographer or director of photography as they are also known, to capture the true essence of an event and scene. Thomas Edison even once said, “By faithfully reproducing and kind or type of movement, it [cinematography] constitutes man’s most astonishing victory to date over forgetfulness. It retains and restores the things memory alone can’t recover, not to mention its auxiliary agencies: the written page, drawing photography. … Like them, cinematography prevents the things of yesterday that are useful to tomorrow’s progress from sinking into oblivion; amongst these one must count moving things, which only a few years ago were considered impossible to fix in an image” (Neale, 54). A picture, whether it be a photographed image or a filmed image is nothing when it has not been looked at with the proper eyes. When expressed through the proper lens and eye an image can really be worth a thousand words.

McKee argues that the renewal of image-making techniques makes it possible to express various forms of expression, but this spectacular picture merely confuses the spectators and, in fact, weakens the expression of the content of the story. No content as a support. In fact, McKee's point of view is also a true portrayal of the current status of the film industry.

The BBFC has commissioned me to undertake research as part of a project to ascertain to what degree films can be regarded as powerful within contemporary society. In this assignment, I will comprehensively explain the relationship between audiences and films with well explained examples. I refer to the different sectors relating to the topic that include the following: