Cinema In European Cinema

During the course of this essay it is my intention to discuss the differences between Classical Hollywood and post-Classical Hollywood. Although these terms refer to theoretical movements of which they are not definitive it is my goal to show that they are applicable in a broad way to a cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production between 1916 and 1960 and which also pervaded Western Mainstream Cinema (Classical Hollywood or Classic Narrative Cinema) and to the movement and changes that came about following this time period (Post-Classical or New Hollywood). I intend to do this by first analysing and defining aspects of Classical Hollywood and having done that,

“Fame once attained can seldom be held- unless early death makes it immortal” (Runcie).The art of filmmaking and the whole idea of entertainment has changed dramatically through the years. Movies have ranged from dramatic expressions and the over the top scenes to portraying  life more realistically. The industry of entertainment with all it’s coups and defeats has come together from silent movies, the starting point of its success technologically and creatively taking cinematic experience to a whole new level.

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

To understand film as history or rather, history as film – is to be able to differentiate and acknowledge not only “[the] source or a document only of its aesthetic history, but of history in general.” Although some individuals may interpret history to come before film, the collection and portrayal of past historical events would have been difficult, if not impossible, without the invention of the kinetoscope in 1888, by famous persona Thomas Edison. “Kineto” to mean movement and “scope” to watch – it was originally to be viewed by a single person at a time, however, through the modern use of technology, films can be viewed by many around the world. The perception that film can function as history is not to be mistaken with the misunderstanding

In 1894 they created what was called a Cinématographe. With the birth of the cinema camera a new medium of expression was born. Thus allowing artists to capture life in a new light.

The birth of film began in 1872, when Leland Stanford bet a friend that a horse lifts all four of its legs off the ground when running. To settle the disagreement, Stanford employed photographer Eadweard Muybridge to take pictures. After settling the debate, Muybridge developed the first primitive cinema that he called “zoöpraxiscope”. The first films lasted only about a minute long, were black and white, and had no entertainment

Europe is the home of many nations. It is also the home of philosophical, political and cultural movements. Mainly because of its advantage of having a western civilization before anyone else is currently named as the "Old Continent" (Lewis and Wigen, 1997, p.29). The fact that there is a considerate amount of movements of all classes in Europe created many borders and national sentiments. Although in recent times and culturally speaking, and in film specifically, there is a defined map that splits the industry in two: Hollywood, which is popular entertainment, the "norm" or the "classic", and Europe, which is art; this is seen in the study of film as a cultural phenomenon, film theory, where the studies are well-stablished in Britain and the

The first film for motion photography invented in 1885 by George Eastman and William H. Walker, which contributed to the progress of motion photography. Soon after that, the brothers Auguste, and Louis Lumiere created a hand-cranked machine called the camera operator, which could include both capture images and project still frames in the

The invention of the cinema began in the 1890’s in America through the exploration of “persistence of vision.” This is the technique in which the human eye can begins to see the illusion of movement when twenty-four picture frames are rapidly fired one after the other. “... later research demonstrated,

According to Carlos Diegues, a leader of Brazil’s revolutionary Cinema Novo movement, “Every country has two national cinemas: its own, and Hollywood (Sterritt, David).” The American Film Industry is the oldest in the world and its styles and methods have exerted a powerful influence on filmmakers and audiences worldwide since the early twentieth century. Foreign film industries don’t necessarily actively seek to adopt the practices and styles of American film; rather, international countries have been flooded with the big-budget spectacles that intrigue and engage the audience through their grand style of narrative storytelling, which inevitably impacts the way foreign filmmakers produce their films. Audiences worldwide have been conditioned

So the year was 1894 and the city was none other than New York City. It was then when the public caught the first glance of Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope at work. With this invention, pictures were projected in

The romantic idea of the auteur is described by film theoretician, André Bazin, observing the film form as an idealistic phenomenon. Through the personal factor in artistic creation as a standard reference, Bazin primarily refers to an essential literary and romantic conception of the artist as central. He considers the relationship between film aesthetics and reality more important than the director itself and places cinema above paintings. He described paintings as a similar ethical creation to film stating a director ‘can be valued according to its measurements and the celebrity of the signature, the objective quality of the work itself was formerly held in much higher esteem.’ (Bazin, 1967: 250). Bazin contemplates the historical and social aspects that indeed hinder a director’s retribution to their own personalised film, thus en-companying their own ideological judgement upon the world ‘more so in cinema where the sociological and historical cross-currents are countless.’ (Bazin, 1967: 256)

During the mid to late years of the 19th century, a new form of entertainment emerged. Film entered the stage of innovation. New marketing and technological innovations developed for film to become the art it is today. In the 1830s, Joseph Plateau designed the Phenakistoscope. This device had a picture in the middle of a wheel made with mirrors and small openings. When spun, the Phenakistoscope made the picture appear to move. The name changed to Zoetrope in the 1860s and producers advertised the product as an accessory every home needed (Dixon & Foster, 2008). Later inventions that preceded the first motion picture camera include: Henry Du Mont’s Omiscope, Henry R. Heyl’s Phasmatrope, Eadweard Muybridge’s Zoöpraxiscope, Etienne-Jules Marey’s fusil photographique and Eastman Kodak’s chronophotographs (Parkinson, 1997). With a design by Thomas Edison, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson built the first modern movie camera, the Kinetograph, in 1890 (Dixon & Foster, 2008). In 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumiére patented the Cinématographe, a machine that combined the engineering of a camera and a projector (Bergan, 2006). Businessmen capitalized on the growing need for a place to witness these brand new films, thus they charged people to see them in their living rooms (Potter, 2014). These creations made movie-making a reality.

No matter who a person thinks invented the motion picture camera, whether it was Louis Lumiere or Thomas Edison, I'm sure they had no idea what it would become at the turn of the century. Motion pictures, has become an entertainment medium like no other. From Fred Ott's Sneeze to Psycho to Being John Malkovich, the evolution from moving pictures to a pure art form has been quite amazing. Different steps in filming techniques define eras in one of the most amazing ideas that was ever composed. Silent to Sound. Short to long. Black and white to color. Analog to Digital. All were important marks in the History of Motion Pictures. "It's different than other arts. It had to be invented"