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| Thursday, 10 April 2003 |
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The motion picture - a historical perspective by Murali Jayadeva What is Motion Picture? It is a succession of photographs projected rapidly on to a screen to create the illusion of continuous movement. Modern movies project 24 frames per second. The film used may be 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, or 70mm wide and will have a sound track. Research into persistence of vision, using drawings in the 19th century and the development of photography, culminated in Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope (1894) which was a peep show version of the movies to come in the future. Projection of motion pictures using Edison's Vitascope (1896) was a success in vaudeville. Static camerawork soon gave way to the creative use of both camera and film editing process and in 1903 Edwin S. Porter exploited them in the one reel narrative film - The Great Train Robbery. The success of this movie helped establish NICKELODEONS in the US and this led in turn to the building of movie palaces. By 1913 American Film Industry was established aimed at satisfying a mass popular craving. Independent producers moved into California to escape the power of distribution trusts. Cecil B. de Mille's the Squaw Man (1914) and Mack Sennett's comedies helped finance the establishment of Hollywood studios. D. W. Griffith was the creative genius of the era. From 1908 he explored the possibilities of film and created "stars" to increase the appeal of his work. He made the first feature length films (1913) and his epics. The Birth of Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1917) are considered landmarks of cinema history. When World War I broke out film production in Europe came to a standstill but after a short spell, German Cinema attained influence with films like the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) and the work of G. W. Pabst and Fritz Lang. Russia's Sergei Eisentein with his monumental work Battleship Potemkin and the Scandinavians Carl Dreyer and Victor Sjorstrom achieved major reputations as film directors of vintage cinema. But there were two producers David O. Selznick and Irving Thalberg who were creative and directed their own films with great success. The use of motion pictures for other than narrative purposes was established early. Newsreels were produced by Charles Pathe in Paris by 1909; Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North, 1922 consolidated the appeal of documentary films; cartoons became popular features of cinematic presentations especially after Walt Disney created the legendary Mickey Mouse in the late 1920s. The coming of sound in the Jazz Singer, 1927 briefly caused a set back of the film as an art form; the camera was immobilised for a short time but soon it regained its fluidity when sound techniques were improved and it became a useful adjunct. Colour techniques were finally established with films like the Wizard of OZ, 1939 and the epic Gone With the Wind 1939. They were the first films in which colour played an integral part of the effect and not merely as a novelty. After World War II, the industry experimented with Cinerama, Cinemascope, Vista Vision and even 3D but cinema's most powerful impact was in the techniques of editing and cinematography used since the silent era. The great age of Hollywood (1930 to 1950) occurred partly because of its ability to provide cheap entertainment during the period of Depression and because of the totalitarian censorship which crippled film making in Europe to a large extent and made great film makers like Fritz Lang and Joseph von Strenberg migrate to America. The westerners and the musicals became uniquely successful. The British film industry produced some notable movies under Alexander Korda productions under Alfred Hitchcok's direction while French directors Rene Clair and Jean Renoir made valuable contributions to world cinema of that era. Since World War II the mode of presentation of the Art film and The Popular film was in conflict. Movies no longer was dominated by the technique of mass entertainment. The advent of TV drastically reduced the attendance of Cinema Theatres. The producers in order to wean them away from TV came out with block busters on wide screen showing violence with a punch and movies with explicit sex. The motion picture audience today is a youthful one with trendy ideas and high levels of appreciation. Film distribution has become globalised. Directors such as Fellini, de Sica, Chaplin, Satyajit Ray, Kurosawa, Antonioni Ingmar Bergmann, Roberto Rosselini, Roman Polanski, Bunuel, Truffaut have made exciting contributions to world cinema. Hollywood's dominance has been superseded by many independent productions worldwide and the vigour and popularity of film as entertainment as well as an art form continues unabated, despite severe competition from TV and the Cable. |
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