George Melies and his contributions to cinema history
The film industry encompasses technological and commercial organizations of filmmaking. The story of the Kelly Gang was the first feature film to be produced and its production was done in Australia. This film was produced and directed by Charles Tait and Dan Barry in 1906. By 1911, other countries were also beginning to show some interest in feature films. The modern film industry has evolved over the years and it is still evolving. Famous filmmakers such as George Melies made important contributions to the development of early cinema. He is recognized as the pioneer of early cinema, special effects, and the invention of bizarre ideas about the big screen. Jim Glichrist of the
…show more content…
Following this, most of his films do not exist today. After being forced to quit the film business, Melies decided to sell toys at the Montparnasse station. After sometime, he was acknowledge and honored for his contributions in the film industry and was then allowed to perform. The Cinema society awarded him a home in Chateau d’Orly. Louis Lumiere also awarded him with an award called Legion d’honneur. He later died on the twenty-first day of January 1938 in Paris and was buried there.
Melies contribution to cinema history
Melies is one of the most celebrated filmmakers in history. His inventions and great imaginations are still reflected in the special effects and onscreen magic movies. Although the film industry has gone through tremendous changes over the years, his ideas are still being used today although in an advanced mode. This generally shows that his ideas were realistic hence they were a good starting point for those who wished to bring about changes in the film industry (Ezra, 2000). The discussion below attempts to look at his contributions to the film industry as a whole.
At 10, Melies had started developing some ideas on stage performance. He creatively constructed his own sets of marionettes which were small in size. This was an early sign that little Melies was interested in stage work. The fact that he was opposed to the idea of running the family business proved that he was equally interested in film
In the early 1950s the films of Douglas Sirk led the way in defining the emerging genre of the Hollywood melodrama. "Melodrama" strictly means the combination of music (melos) and drama, but the term is used to refer to the "popular romances that depicted a virtuous individual (usually a woman) or couple (usually lovers) victimized by repressive and inequitable social circumstances" (Schatz 222). Sirk's films were commercially successful and boosted the careers of stars like Lauren Bacall, Jane Wyman, and Rock Hudson, who was in seven of Sirk's thirteen American films (Halliday 162-171). Although critics in the fifties called the films "trivial" and "campy" and dismissed them
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,
This paper was prepared for Introduction to Film History, Module 1 Homework Assignment, taught by Professor Stephanie Sandifer.
Film in Australia has a large part of the Australian lifestyle and has had many major changes in Popular Culture from 1945 to the present. The first film to be released was the Ned Kelly Gang in 1945. Australia has produced many successful films during this time and has had many influences on Australian pop culture. During the 1940s and 1950s the film industry was lacking from Government policy changes
The first place to look when you are looking into the history of film is the 1900s. The 1900s to 1910 is when the very first film machine was invented and used for the first time. The early technology of film was invented by and demonstrated by Raoul Gromain-sanson. Raoul presented his Cineorama system in the early 1900s. “Cineorama featured an enormous panoramic screen, onto which were projected ten simultaneous images side
Article Three – Author: David Bordwell / Title of Article: The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film
Rarely has a film impacted an audience and held the test of time as the film Gone with the Wind. I have always been curious if director, Victor Fleming and producer, David O. Selznick and screenplay writer, Sidney Howard knew what they were creating a masterpiece and how this film would have such an enormous impact on audiences for years to come. Interestingly enough there were some who thought the film should not be made, as Irving Thalberg said to Louis B. Meyer in 1936, “Forget it Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel” (Ten Films that Shook the World).
Early cinema is often referred to as a progression to narrative cinema, Tom Gunning would argue that it was not a progression but had its own purpose and coined the term The Cinema of Attractions in his essay ‘Now you see it, Now you don’t’. This is the concept that a large quantity of the first film makers produced films that were more about the spectacle, most of the films leading up to 1900 reflected the fascination with technology and how things happened rather than why. Gunning noted that there were three assumptions of film; the general ideas that people had about the timeline of film and where it would end up. There is the cinematic assumption, the idea that film was ‘restricted to the technological reproduction of theatre’ (Gunning T.1993) early cinema was primitive and only a practice for what was to come. The narrative assumption is that film is ‘only important as it is a predecessor to a more engaging and effective form of film,’ (Gunning T. 1993) this suggests that narrative cinema is the natural form of film. The final assumption is the idea that ‘cinema only truly appeared when it discovered its mission of telling stories.’ (Metz C. 1974) These assumptions all encompass the idea that narrative is the end form of film. In this essay I am going to discuss Tom Gunning’s theory of The Cinema of Attractions and the differences between them and narratively driven films.
Méliès was one of the first directors to progress cinematic technology, which paved the way for narratives as style of film (Leveridge, 2012: 98).
audience) that he will wait in a café until he finds her. The café he
The film industry has continuously changed since its inception due to rapid technology advancements. Camera technology has been a key factor that has influenced the growth of filmmaking. The first motion picture in the world was produced in the early 1880s, and the first public screening occurred ten years later. It didn’t take long for the quality of films to improve as new filmmaking equipment emerged. Ever since the first movie was produced, the film industry has been continuously changing in response to emerging filmmaking technology. Introduction of digital photography and digital data storage along with the development of internet significantly influenced the film industry (Barsam, 2015). These technologies contributed
The modern film industry was born around the beginning of the twentieth century. On April 23rd 1896 Thomas Edition showed the first publicly-projected motion picture at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City. From there the film industry had an explosive growth rate. In fact,
In this essay I will be discussing five key points throughout Post Production history between the 1900s-1960s. Post Production is seen as a vital component in the cinematic industry as it essentially finalises the final products. Techniques that have been developed over the years are incredibly important, but they all have an origin. Although these techniques started out without overwhelming effect, they are now unbelievably crucial to how films are constructed. The five points I wish to discuss go as follows: The Great Train Robbery and Edwin Porter himself, D.W. Griffith and his overwhelming influence on editing, The Jazz Singer, the Kuleshov Effect and finally, 2001: A Space Odyssey. As well as discussing these key factors, this essay will take into consideration secondary material.
“If Georges Méliès was the first to ‘push the cinema toward the theatrical way,’ as he claimed, then Edwin S. Porter was the first to push the cinema
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"