Cinema's Silent Era

Throughout the late 19th century, a series of 'magic lantern' optical toys (such as the Phenakistoscope and the Zoetrope) presented short, repetitive animations exploiting the eye's persistence of vision (a phenomenon first reported by Peter Mark Roget in 1824). Coleman Sellers modified the Zoetrope, replacing its hand-drawn images with photographs, creating the Kinematoscope in 1861. Henry Renno Heyl then projected a series of Kinematoscope photographs, using his Phasmatrope device, in 1870.

Emil Reynaud invented a Zoetrope-like device called the Praxinoscope, which functioned as both a camera and a projector. Although Reynaud's images were all hand-drawn rather than photographic, they were presented on strips of celluloid (rather than on the discs used by all previous devices). Reynaud called his machine Theatre Optique, and used it to project Pantomimes Lumineuses presentations. His first public screening was a projection of Pauvre Pierrot (1892). Similarly, in 1886, William Friese-Greene collaborated with John Arthur Roebuck Rudge on a Biophantascope capable of projecting magic lantern slides in rapid succession.

Eadweard Muybridge used a Zoopraxiscope - a series of cameras, operated in rapid succession - to photograph the movements of a horse's legs. His results, published in 1878, seem in retrospect to be prototypical (albeit horizontal) film strips. Etienne-Jules Marey enhanced Muybridge's technique, creating a single camera capable of capturing a series of rapid exposures which he called Chronophotographie. Otto Anschutz invented a device capable of projecting Chronophotographie images in rapid sequence; he first demonstrated this Electrotachyscope in Berlin in 1894.

1880s

The very first moving photographic images were filmed in 1888. Louis Le Prince, using a camera he had invented himself, recorded approximately two seconds of 'actuality' footage known as Roundhay Garden Scene in Leeds, England. Le Prince also projected his footage, from a paper filmstrip, using projectors he designed himself. Le Prince built his first projector in Paris in 1887, and produced two further models in Leeds later that year. His projectors were patented in 1888.

Projection speeds for silent films were not standardised. Each of Le Prince's devices projected at a different rate: twelve, sixteen, and twenty frames-per-second. As early cameras and projectors were hand-cranked, frame-rate consistency was not always maintained, though sixteen frames-per-second is accepted as an industry average for silent films. Subsequently, twenty-four frames-per-second became the standard speed for sound films.

1890s

Thomas Edison, inventor of the cylinder phonograph, also experimented with cylindrical film recordings, using a Kinetoscope camera developed with his assistant, WKL Dickson. In 1893, after modifications, the Kinetoscope was consolidated as a hand-cranked machine displaying celluloid filmstrips to individual viewers, known as a Kinetograph; the first film shown to the public in this manner was Blacksmith Scene (1893). A year later, Charles Francis Jenkins invented the Phantoscope projector in Indiana, and refined it with Thomas Armat. Their Phantoscope patent was then sold to Edison, who renamed it the Vitascope and used it to project Kinetograph films in 1896.

In early 1895, the brothers Gray and Otway Latham developed and publicly demonstrated a film-projection system in New York. The Lathams were assisted by WKL Dickson, who had also worked with Edison, and their device was known as a Panopticon.

In Berlin, the brothers Max and Emil Skladowsky designed a Bioskop camera which recorded and projected two simultaneous images, each at eight frames-per-second therefore creating the illusion of sixteen frames-per-second projection. Their Bioskop was demonstrated to the public in late 1895.

Despite numerous antecedents (such as Louis Le Prince, Charles Francis Jenkins, the Lathams, and the Skladowskys), the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumiere are generally credited as the pioneers of projected film. The Lumieres utilised a Cinematographe camera/projector, patented by Leon Bouly in 1893 (originally called a Cynematograph, in 1892), to project moving images onto a large cinema screen.

The first film the Lumieres projected was La Sortie Des Usines Lumiere A Lyon, in Paris at the very end of 1895. The Lumiere's early films were all brief 'actualites' and 'scenics', documentaries detailing events from everyday life, the sole exception being their short comedy Le Jardinier: L'Arroseur Arrose, also from 1895, technically the first film with a fictional narrative. The significance was not the content of these films but rather the medium itself. Like still photography, x-rays, air travel, and high-speed land travel, all popularised at the turn of the 20th century, the cinema offered a new perspective from which to view the world. The early films of the Lumieres and others are now regarded as a 'cinema of attractions', offering novelty and spectacle rather than narrative.

When the Lumieres' films were screened in Japan, they were accompanied by live narration performed by 'benshi', and each sequence was projected on a continuous loop (a technique known as Tasuke). The benshi originally introduced each film by providing an explanation of its exposition, though later their performances became more sophisticated. Actors would stand behind the screen, interpreting the film as a live drama, known as Kagezerifu. (History came full-circle in 2003, when Anastasia Fite developed 'movieoke', a variant of karaoke in which the public performed dialogue to accompany mute film projections.)

1900s

Cinema's exponential technological advancement was demonstrated in 1900 by Raoul Gromoin-Sanson, who unveiled his Cineorama system. Cineorama featured an enormous panoramic screen, onto which were projected ten simultaneous images side by side. The result was certainly spectacular, though the flammability of nitrate film reels, coupled with the logistics of synchronising ten projectors, curtailed the system's commercial potential. It would later influence Abel Gance's Napoleon and Hollywood's Cinerama process.

Primitive cinema initially consisted of 'actualities' (from the Lumieres; known in Latin America as 'actualidades') and Photoscenes (simple recordings of popular entertainers, released by Gaumont), though French stage magician Georges Melies sought to fully explore the camera's potential for illusion. He used editing and trick photography to create films in which objects and people appear, disappear, multiply, explode, grow, and shrink. These stop-motion effects influenced early cartoon animators such as James Stuart Blackton (Humorous Phases Of Funny Faces, 1906) and Emile Cohl (Fantasmagorie, 1907). Melies's film screenings were accompanied by narration provided by 'bonimenteurs', similar to Japanese benshi.

Melies's masterpiece was a science-fiction tale about a group of curious Victorians exploring the lunar surface, Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902). It was based on a story by Jules Verne, who inspired many such narratives of fantastical journeys. Le Voyage was more than ten times longer than any previous film, a remarkable attempt at a sustained narrative which predates Edwin S Porter's early western The Great Train Robbery (1903). The first feature-length film was made in Australia, Charles Tait's The Story Of The Kelly Gang (1906).

1910s

DW Griffith's early short films (such as the gangster film The Musketeers Of Pig Alley, 1912) were the first to combine all the new narrative devices, including cross-cutting, multiple camera positions, inter-titles, and close-ups. Griffith can thus be seen as the first 'modern' director, whose greatest achievements were the historical epics The Birth Of A Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916; subtitled A Sun-Play Of The Ages: A Drama Of Comparisons and Love's Struggle Throughout The Ages).

It was, however, the Italian studios that produced the very first epic films, including Quo Vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913) and the stunning Cabiria: Visione Storica Del Terzo Secolo AC (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914). In contrast to these historical epics was Arnaldo Ginna's film Vita Futurista (1916), part of the Futurismo (Futurism) movement and directed according to the cinema manifesto published by FT Marinetti in L'Italia Futurista (1916).

Screen comedian Charlie Chaplin emigrated from London to Hollywood. There, he directed and starred in a series of single-reel silent comedies, including The Tramp (1915), which made him the most recognisable film star in the world. Together with DW Griffith, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, Chaplin founded the independent studio United Artists in 1919. Pickford and Fairbanks were married, and Fairbanks specialised in swashbuckling roles such as The Mark Of Zorro (Fred Niblo, 1920) which anticipate those of Errol Flynn in the 1930s (The Adventures Of Robin Hood; Michael Curtiz, 1938). United Artists was eventually sold in 1952, and later merged with MGM.

The world-famous stage actress Sarah Bernhardt starred in the Elizabethan costume drama Les Amours De La Reine Elisabeth (Louis Mercanton, 1912), one of France's Film d'Art productions. The first example was L'Assassinat Du Duc de Guise (1908), directed by Andre Calmettes and Charles Le Bargy. Films d'Art were significant for their extended running-times, though their static camerawork and stage-like sets were more regressive than innovative. A similar trend existed in Germany, with the popularity of Autorenfilme (literary adaptations), starting with Der Andere (Max Mack, 1912). The Autorenfilme became increasingly elaborate, leading to opulent costume dramas known as Kostumefilme, a trend begun by Joe May's Veritas Vincit (1918) though dominated by Ernst Lubitsch (notably his Mme du Barry, 1919).

The brief period between 1908 and 1911 was seen as a 'bela epoca' for Brazilian cinema, among the most popular productions being Fitas Cantatas films accompanied by live singers. Similar to Brazil's Fitas Cantatas were the Japanese Rensa-Geki films, in which each sequence would be followed by a short dramatic scene (an innovation first introduced in 1916). Other Japanese genres of the period were: Nonsensu-Mono (comedies), Matatabi-Mono (films about wandering outlaws, such as Hiroshi Inagaki's Tenka Taiheiki from 1928), Bunka Eiga (documentaries, later called Kiroku Eiga), and Jiji Eiga (also documentaries, though specifically jingoistic).

1920s

Erich von Stroheim emigrated from Austria to America, and soon gained a reputation for over-indulgence. His film budgets quadrupled, and the excessive running-times of his films were drastically cut before distribution. Greed (1924), for example, lasted over nine hours in rough-cut. French director Abel Gance's films (notably La Roue from 1923 and the 'biopic' Napoleon from 1927) were similarly extravagant. Napoleon had a running-time of over five hours, and was projected using the Polyvision system: three screens were used, enabling incredible panoramic images to be presented. Polyvision was influenced by the ten-projector panoramas of the French Cineorama system, and it inspired the American Cinerama process of the 1950s. Similar effects were later achieved using split-screen techniques, by Richard L Bare (Wicked, Wicked, 1973; filmed in Duo-Vision) and Mike Figgis (Timecode, 2000).

Charlie Chaplin's silent comedy shorts of the 1910s developed into feature-films in the 1920s and 1930s, notably The Gold Rush (1925) and City Lights (1931). (Chaplin resisted the industry's transition to sound and dialogue, though he did use sound effects and synchronised scores.) Buster Keaton's The General (1927, directed by Keaton and Clyde Bruckman) is another enduring silent comedy. Other Hollywood stars of the era included sex-symbol Rudolph Valentino, whose most popular leading role was in the exotic drama The Sheik (George Melford, 1921). In contrast to the decadence of Hollywood's emerging star and studio systems was Robert Flaherty's humanist documentary Nanook Of The North (1922).

With the introduction of sustained narratives to Japanese cinema, the country's film industry began to polarise into two distinct styles: Gendai-Geki (dramas with contemporary settings, initially influenced by German Expressionism and also known as Gendai-Mono) and Jidai-Geki (period dramas influenced by Kyu-Geki historical films, also known as Jidai-Mono). Kichizo Chiba's Onoga Tsumi (1909) is one of the earliest examples of Gendai-Geki.

One of the earliest Jidai-Geki films is Chushingura (1907), by Ryo Konishi. Another, Bansho Kanamori's Yuki-Yoe Shi: Murasaki Zukin (1923), is also an early example of the Ken-Geki genre (Samurai sword-fighting films, also known as Chambara). Daisuke Ito's Chuji Tabi Nikki: Goyo Hen (1927) represents the pinnacle of early Jidai-Geki cinema and is also a Yakuza-Geki prototype. (Yakuza films, or Yakuza-Eiga, were initially chivalrous and known as Ninkyo-Eiga, a trend initiated in 1964 by Shingehiro Ozawa's Bakuto; in the 1970s, they became more realistic, a Jitsuroku-Eiga style popularised in 1973 by Kinji Fukasaku's Jingi Naki Tatakai).

Shomin-Geki films (comedies of social observation about lower-middle-class life, also known as Shoshimin-Geki) include Yasujiro Shimazu's Otosan (1923). The Shomin-Geki social comedies led to a series of satirical comedies known as Modan-Mono, such as Yutaka Abe's Ashi Ni Sawatta Onna (1926).

A group of overtly Marxist films, known as Keiko-Eiga, were swiftly suppressed by the Japanese authorities. Amongst them was Kenji Mizoguchi's Tokai Kokyogaku (1929). One of the final Keiko-Eiga films was Shigekichi Suzuki's Nani Gakanojo Wo So Saretaka (1930), the highest-grossing film in Japanese silent cinema. Sadly, the vast majority of Japan's silent films are now no longer extant.

Weimar Expressionism

German Expressionismus (Expressionism), the cinema's first avant-garde movement, emphasised atmosphere at the expense of realism. Angular, distorted designs, including artificial light and shadow formations, were painted directly onto the set walls. Actors were encouraged to create wildly stylised performances. Unconventional camera angles were employed. Elements of the Expressionist style would later appear in the films of Orson Welles, in Universal's 1930s horror films, and in Film Noir.

Fritz Lang's superproduction Metropolis (1927) almost bankrupted Germany's premier studio, UFA. Lang also made the chilling M (1931), and later produced a series of Hollywood thrillers including The Big Heat (1953). FW Murnau directed Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie Des Grauens (1921) and the naturalistic Kammerspielfilm Der Letzte Mann (1924) in Germany, and Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans (1927) in America, only to be killed in a road accident a few years later.

A series of German Neue Sachlichkeit films, beginning with Die Strasse (Karl Grune, 1923) and Die Freudlose Gasse (GW Pabst, 1925), provided a contrast to the extreme stylisation of Expressionism. The films of this period were concerned with poverty-stricken life on the streets, hence they are known as Strassenfilme ('street films'). Simultaneously, DW Griffith also made a street film, Isn't Life Wonderful? (1924), filmed on location in Germany.

Avant-Garde Cinema

The cinematic avant-garde can be traced back to two European silent films: Abel Gance's experimental La Folie Du Dr Tube (1915) and the extraordinary horror masterpiece Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari (Robert Weine, 1919), the first Expressionist film. The intersection of art and cinema in the 1920s led to a flowering of the cinematic avant-garde; Iakov Protazanov's Aelita (1924), for example, is the only known film from the Constructivist art movement. American avant-garde cinema, however, has much later origins: Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid's Meshes Of The Afternoon from 1943, and Kenneth Anger's Fireworks from 1947.

Caligari was a Film d'Art production in all but name, with its painted scenery and static camera, though its angular sets were designed with complete disregard for realism. This resulted in a film which stylistically echoed the unbalanced psychology of its sinister central character and his somnambulistic assistant.

In France, Danish director Carl Theodore Dreyer made La Passion De Jeanne d'Arc (1928) and Spaniard Luis Bunuel (with minimal assistance from artist Salvador Dali) gained entry into the Paris Surrealist group with Un Chien Andalou (1928). The latter film, an iconoclastic masterpiece of enigmatic, shocking, and deliberately provocative dream imagery, features a woman's eye being sliced open with a razor, ants crawling from a hole in a man's hand, and dead donkeys lying on pianos. Bunuel subsequently worked extensively in Mexico, where he directed the Neo-Realist Los Olvidados (1950) and the Surrealist El Angel Exterminador (1962). He returned to France in the 1960s and made the sexual fantasy Belle De Jour (1967).

Absolute films, influenced by the Dada art movement, included Rhythmus '21 (Hans Richter, 1921), Diagonalsymphonien (Viking Eggeling, 1921), Entr'acte (Rene Clair, 1924), and Lichtspiel Opus (Walther Ruttmann, 1921; the first abstract film screened to the public). The Dada artists Marcel Duchamp (Anaemic Cinema, 1925) and Man Ray (La Retour A La Raison, 1923) also made experimental films at this time.

Many of these semi-abstract art films (or Cine-Poems) are examples of cinematic Impressionism, juxtaposing images to give them new meanings as the montazh (montage) theorists in Russia would later advocate. Fernand Leger's Le Ballet Mecanique (1924) was another experimental semi-abstract film, specifically influenced by Russian montage editing. Total abstraction was achieved by Henri Chomette, the French director whose works of Cinema-Pur included Cinq Minutes De Cinema-Pur (1925), depicting abstract patterns of light.

Soviet Montage

Impressionism in film was made possible by the work of Lev Kuleshov, the Russian director who investigated the psychological impact of montage. Kuleshov intercut a picture of Ivan Mozhukhin's expressionless face with images of a bowl of soup, a dead body in a coffin, and a little girl. After the shot of the soup, audiences perceived the face as appearing hungry; it was interpreted as mournful after the shot of the coffin; finally, it was viewed as happy after the little girl. Thus, Kuleshov discovered that juxtaposition could alter the meaning of images.

Following in the tradition of the agit-trains which projected Agitki political propaganda to Russian peasants, theorist Sergei Eisenstein harnessed the political potential of Kuleshov's montage. Eisenstein published several essays on montage, the first being Montazh Attraktsionov in 1923. He was then commissioned by the Russian government to produce cinematic commemorations of the Russian Revolutions including Bronenosets Potyomkin (1925) and Oktyabr (1928). Bronenosets Potyomkin, which dramatised the 1905 naval revolt at Odessa, contains arguably the most celebrated sequence in silent cinema: the massacre on the Odessa Steps. Alongside Eisenstein, Russia's greatest directors of the silent era were Vsevolod Pudovkin (Mat, 1926) and Aleksandr Dovzhenko (Zemlya, 1930). Another Russian director, Alexander Sokurov, produced Russki Kovcheg (2002), a digital film consisting of a single continuous shot, the antithesis of Eisenstein's Montage editing.

Following the German invasion during World War II, Russian cinema was again harnessed for propagandist purposes, with a series of short films known collectively as Kinosborniki. The first of these anti-Nazi shorts was Boyevoy Kinosbornik, directed by Sergei Gerasimov, I Mutanov, and Y Nekrasov in 1941. The Russian public, however, were eager for escapism rather than propaganda, and the most successful films were glamorous Kolkhoz musicals such as Tsirk (Grigori Aleksandrov, 1936).

While Eisenstein used montage to simulate and heighten reality, Dziga Vertov's Kinoki philosophy saw it as a tool for the manipulation of realism. Vertov published a series of manifestos (such as My: Variant Manifesta, 1922), though his outstanding contribution to cinema is Chelovek S Kinoapparatom from 1929. The film is essentially a City Symphony documentary about everyday life in Moscow, though it uses techniques such as split-screen, double-exposure, trick editing, stop-motion, and freeze-frames to constantly remind the audience of the camera's presence. (Walther Ruttmann had previously directed a City Symphony about Berlin, Berlin: Die Symphonie Einer Grosstadt, in 1927; the first example was Alberto Cavalcanti's study of Paris, Rien Que Les Heures from 1926.)

The innovations of Russian montage and the French avant-garde were part of a general modernist movement throughout the arts, and Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine (1923) is a clear example of this trend - it is resolutely modernist in its set design, though its outstanding artistic radicalism (like that of the overtly Expressionistic Caligari) inevitably made it commercially unsuccessful.