FMS 200 FMS 200 Hollywood Film HistoryHollywood Film History

2

Lecture 1:Lecture 1:Early CinemaEarly Cinema

Professor Michael Rubinoff

Pre-1915 cartoon of “Going to the Movies”

This LessonThis Lesson• Working Terms

• Roots of Cinema

• Movement toward Narrative

• Competition for Audiences

• Assignments

3

Tootsie (1982)Biograph

Advertising Poster, 1900s

Working TermsWorking Terms

4Lesson 1: Part I

Star Theatre, New York CityEarly 1900s

HollywoodHollywood

A cultural site that refers to the constellation of creative industries behind first network radio and later television, along with film studios in the Los Angeles region that produce and distribute globally. 5

1923 Hollywoodland real estate development

IndustryIndustry

A set of institutions or manufacturers, often business enterprises (usually corporations), that desire to maximize profits. In other words, a commercial enterprise.

6

Universal Studios lot with Warner Bros. lot in distance

Hollywood As IndustryHollywood As Industry

“How did a collection of major studio corporations (Hollywood) come to dominate the production, distribution, and exhibition of movies and continue to maintain its control through the coming of sound, the innovation of color and widescreen images, and the diffusion of television and home video?”

7

Douglas Gomery

Roots of CinemaRoots of Cinema

8Lecture 1: Part II

Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). Kircher published this first known illustration of a magic lantern in Ars magna lucis et umbrae, 1646.

Magic LanternMagic Lantern

A device that employed a lens, a shutter, and a persistent light source that projected images on glass slides onto a white wall or drapes.

9

Magic lantern from the 1870s

10

Magic Lantern Slide from the 1800s

Magic Lantern SlideMagic Lantern Slide

11

ZoetropeInvented in 1834 by William George Horner, the zoetrope was an early form of motion picture projector that consisted of a drum containing a set of still images, that was turned in a circular fashion in order to create the illusion of motion.

Insert Image Here

Add Image

Caption w/ Credits

Here

A Zoetrope with three strips of Zoetrope animation

Eadweard MuybridgeEadweard Muybridge

12

The Horse in Motion, photograph by Eadweard Muybridge. "Sallie Gardner," owned by Leland Stanford; running at a 1:40 gait over the

Palo Alto track, 19th June 1878.

KinetographKinetograph

13

Interior of the kintrographic theater, Edison's Laboratory, Orange, N. J., showing phonograph and kinetograph.

Appeared in Century Magazine Vol. 48, Issue 2 (June 1894).

KinetoscopeKinetoscope

14

Early Kinetoscope parlor in San Franciscoabout 1894-5

The “peephole machine” showing

the continuous, circulating loop of film

Black MariaBlack Maria

15

Edison's Black Maria studio, East Orange, NJ, circa 1895

The KissThe Kiss (Edison, 1896) (Edison, 1896)

Please pause the lecture and watch the The Kiss between May Irwin and John C. Rice, the first kiss ever recorded on film. 16

A Fad with Long-Term EffectsA Fad with Long-Term Effects

17

Kinetoscope viewing situation

with earphones, circa 1985

Xerox's 1978 film strip series "On Location With Grammar"

Lumière BrothersLumière Brothers

18

Advertisement from AugusteLumière (1862-1954)

and Louis Lumière (1864-1948)

The first screening of motion pictures at Paris's Salon Indien Du Grand Café on December 28, 1895

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (Lumière, 1896)(Lumière, 1896)

Please pause the lecture and watch the Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat.

19

20

Cinema of Attractions

• Exhibitionist cinema– Showing rather than

telling– Theatrical display over

narrative absorption– Acknowledgment of

the camera by the film’s characters

Insert Image Here

Sandow (Edison, 1894)

VitascopeVitascope

21

Poster for Edison’s Vitascope, 1896

Tootsie (1982)

Screenplay by Murray Schisgal and Larry Gelbart

based on a story by Don McGuire and Larry Gelbart

Movement Toward NarrativeMovement Toward Narrative

22Lecture 1: Part III

The Orpheum Theatre, San Francisco, CaliforniaSeptember 12, 1915

A Trip to the MoonA Trip to the Moon (Méliès, 1902) (Méliès, 1902)

Please pause the lecture and watch A Trip to the Moon.

23

24

The Innovation of MélièsThe Innovation of Méliès

• Special Effects– Stop tricks– Multiple exposure– Time-lapse

photography– Dissolves– Hand painted cells to

add colorA Trip to the Moon (Méliès, 1902)

The Gay Shoe ClerkThe Gay Shoe Clerk(Porter, 1902)(Porter, 1902)

Please pause the lecture and watch The Gay Shoe Clerk

25

Life of an American FiremanLife of an American Fireman(Porter, 1902)(Porter, 1902)

26

Please pause the lecture and watch Life of an American Fireman

The Great Train RobberyThe Great Train Robbery(Porter, 1903)(Porter, 1903)

Please pause the lecture and watch The Great Train Robbery

27

28

The Innovation of PorterThe Innovation of Porter

• Storytelling– Separate scenes– Parallel editing– Camera movement– Location shooting– Less stage-bound

camera placement

The Great Train Robbery (Porter, 1903)

The SuburbaniteThe Suburbanite(McCutcheon, 1904)(McCutcheon, 1904)

Please pause the lecture and watch The Suburbanite

29

J. Stuart BlacktonJ. Stuart Blackton

30

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) Princess Nicotine or The Smoke Fairy (1909)

Please pause the lecture and watch Princess Nicotine

NickelodeonNickelodeon

31

Keith’s Theater, Washington, D.C., 1913

Competition for AudiencesCompetition for Audiences

32Lecture 1: Part IV

Thomas Edison posing with Sir Thomas Lipton, the creator of Lipton Tea circa 1905

American Mutoscope and American Mutoscope and Biograph CompanyBiograph Company

33The Mutoscope, circa 1900, and Biograph, circa 1896

Motion Picture Patents Motion Picture Patents CompanyCompany

34

Executives of film companies newly licensed by the Motion Picture Patents Company gather at the Edison Laboratory on December 18, 1908. First row (left to right): Frank L. Dyer, Sigmund Lubin, William T. Rock, Thomas A. Edison, J. Stuart Blackton, Jeremiah J. Kennedy, George Kleine, and George K. Spoor. Second row: Frank J. Marion, Samuel Long, William N. Selig, Albert E. Smith, Jacques A. Berst, Harry N. Marvin, Thomas Armat(?), and George Scull(?).

35

The First OliogopolyThe First Oliogopoly

• The Edison Trust– Fixed prices– Restricted distribution

and exhibition– Had exclusive contract

with Eastman Kodak– Had exclusive deal

with General Film Company

The 1902 sheet music, “The Kodak Girl,” a March and Two-Step

composed by William T. Cramer and dedicated to the Eastman

Kodak Company.

36

Cleaning Up HollywoodCleaning Up Hollywood

• The Edison Trust– Courted middle-class

viewers– Eliminated sing-alongs– Raised prices– Self-censored its own

films– Submitted films to

censorship board– Drew from the classics Young Tom Edison (1940)

37

Early Cinema RegulationEarly Cinema Regulation

1912 National Board of Censorship seal for the Edison Company

The Motion Picture Distributing The Motion Picture Distributing and Sales Companyand Sales Company

38

Carl Laemmle, William Fox, and Adolph Zukor of the Motion Pictures Distributing and Sales Company. They would later be the heads of Universal, Fox, and Paramount.

39

The Second OliogopolyThe Second Oliogopoly

• The Sales Company– Challenged the Edison

Trust oligopoly– Offered multi-reel

feature films– Developed stars– Offered movies based

on famous plays and novels

– Made controversial filmsOne of the most popular stars in

her day: Theda Bara, “The Vamp” in Under the Yoke (1918)

Major Events 1911-1915Major Events 1911-1915

• 1911: Kodak broke their agreement with the Edison Trust

• 1912: Edison lost a patent suit against a rival company

• 1915: Edison Trust found to be in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and ordered to be dissolved

40

AssignmentsAssignments

41Lecture 1: Part V

Sweeney Todd (2008)

Florence Lawrence, the “Biograph Girl,” circa 1910

ReadingReading• Douglas Gomery, “Hollywood as Industry”• Tom Gunning, “The Cinema of Attractions”• George Sadoul, “Founding Father: Louis

Lumière in Conversation with George Sadoul”

42

43

E-Board PostE-Board Post• Who are some contemporary filmmakers

whose work is similar to George Méliès? Why?

• Lumière’s and Edison’s early films have less to do with storytelling than with visual spectacle. Can you think of some forms of contemporary media that privilege novelty over narrative? Why do audiences still find this kind of cinema appealing?

43

End of Lecture 1End of Lecture 1

Next

Lecture:

Narrative Integration

Traffic in Souls (1913)

44