What is cinema? From photography to cinema

What is cinema? 

From photography to cinema

What is cinema? 

From photography to cinema

The Cinema is a technique for creating the illusion of movement through the projection of still images (photographs) at a rate fast enough to become animated. Cinema also refers to the art of making films, which are stories, real or imaginary: it is the seventh art.

Cinema was born in the late nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, it has become one of the most popular forms of culture. Its evolution is marked by inventions and revolutions that have upset the operation and diffusion of cinema among the general public.

FROM PHOTOGRAPHY TO CINEMA

In the nineteenth century, several inventors developed techniques that will enable cinema to see the light of day.

The French Nicéphore Niépce gets the first photograph in 1826-1827. His compatriot Jacques Daguerre invented the first method of reliable photography in 1837.

The animated images then appear with the American Eadweard Muybridge, who decomposed the gallop of a horse in successive photos in 1878. Thomas Edison (also American) invents the Kinetoscope in 1888: it is the first device of reading and projection of these animated images.

THE OFFICIAL BIRTH OF CINEMA

The real passage from photography to the cinema is possible thanks to the invention of the Cinématographe by the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière in 1895. The camera is used both for shooting, that is to say at the recording a long series of photographic images, and their projection at the rate of 16 frames per second, which allows giving a continuous vision.

The official date of birth of the cinema is December 28, 1895. For the first time, animated images are shown for entertainment purposes: the Sortie des Plants Lumière, screened for this occasion, is considered as the first film.

WHAT DO THE FIRST FILMS LOOK LIKE?

The first movies are very short (they last about a minute), dumb and in black and white. They show scenes of everyday life.

The Lumière brothers organize paid screenings of their first films: the arrival of the train in La Ciotat station (the spectators are so frightened by this train that seems to run straight on them that some run away), the Sprinkler watered or even the baby meal. They then present to the public images from around the world reported by operators; these are the first documentaries.

The French director Georges Méliès gives cinema a new dimension: he writes for his films real stories (scenarios), develops techniques of staging and special effects and becomes the first director of fiction (Voyage en la Lune, 1902).

GOLDEN AGE OF THE CINEMA MUET?

Hollywood, a village near Los Angeles (California, USA) became the capital of world cinema at the beginning of the twentieth century. The studios (the companies that produce and make films) move there from 1909.

Beginning in 1915, the story told by the films is given more and more importance. They last longer (feature films, or long films, replace short films), they are performed by professional actors, the sets are cured and music is added.

During the 1920s, Charlie Chaplin's American comedies, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Laurel and Hardy triumphed on screens around the world.

The "golden age" of silent cinema ends with the arrival of the talking cinema.

TWO MAJOR INNOVATIONS: THE SPEECH AND COLOR

The Jazz Singer (directed by American Alan Crosland in 1927) is the first talking movie. This is a revolution in the history of cinema.

Spoken gives rise to new genres, such as action movies and comic speech-based movies (like those of the Marx Brothers). Musicals appear in the 1930s.

The speaking also allows the arrival of new directors from the theater and therefore more used to dialogues. On the other hand, many actors cannot adapt to this new technique and see their career come to an end at that moment.

The first color films are colored: they are painted directly on the film, image by image. Then, in 1934, the engineers of the American company Technicolor manage to develop a process which allows the realization of films in colors.

THE MATURITY OF CINEMA

Forty years after his birth, cinema is therefore sonorous, speaking and in color. Movies can faithfully reproduce reality, but they are also able to bring dreams to life. Everything is now possible, and genres are increasing: drama, comedy, western, police, fantasy, science fiction, etc. Cinema is no longer just the seventh art, it is becoming an industry that develops with the leisure society. Hollywood's "dream factory" is in full swing and specializes in big-budget entertainment films, while the rest of the world is developing other forms of cinema.

THE THIRD REVOLUTION OF CINEMA: THE DIGITAL

At the end of the twentieth century, cinema is experiencing its third revolution after talking and color: digital. A digital image is not a real image attached to paper (or film). It is coded as numbers (0 and 1) like any information processed by a computer. It is, therefore, a virtual image.