FMS 200 Hollywood Film History Lecture 1 Early

FMS 200 Hollywood Film History

Lecture 1: Early Cinema Pre-1915 cartoon of “Going to the Movies” Professor Michael Rubinoff 2

This Lesson • Working Terms • Roots of Cinema • Movement toward Narrative • Competition for Audiences • Assignments Tootsie (1982) Biograph Advertising Poster, 1900 s 3

Working Terms Star Theatre, New York City Early 1900 s Lesson 1: Part I 4

Hollywood 1923 Hollywoodland real estate development 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 5 globally.

Industry Universal Studios lot with Warner Bros. lot in distance A set of institutions or manufacturers, often business enterprises (usually corporations), that desire to maximize profits. In other words, a commercial enterprise. 6

Hollywood 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? ” Douglas Gomery 7

Roots of Cinema Athanasius Kircher (1602 -1680). Kircher published this first known illustration of a magic lantern in Ars magna lucis et umbrae, 1646. Lecture 1: Part II 8

Magic 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. Magic lantern from the 1870 s 9

Magic Lantern Slide from the 1800 s 10

Zoetrope Invented 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 11

Eadweard Muybridge 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, 19 th June 1878. 12

Kinetograph 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). 13

Kinetoscope Early Kinetoscope parlor in San Francisco about 1894 -5 The “peephole machine” showing the continuous, circulating loop of film 14

Black Maria Edison's Black Maria studio, East Orange, NJ, circa 1895 15

The Kiss (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 Effects Kinetoscope viewing situation with earphones, circa 1985 Xerox's 1978 film strip series "On Location With Grammar" 17

Lumière Brothers Advertisement from Auguste. Lumière (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 18

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (Lumière, 1896) Please pause the lecture and watch the Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat. 19

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) 20

Vitascope Tootsie (1982) Screenplay by Murray Schisgal and Larry Gelbart based on a story by Don Mc. Guire and Larry Gelbart Poster for Edison’s Vitascope, 1896 21

Movement Toward Narrative The Orpheum Theatre, San Francisco, California September 12, 1915 Lecture 1: Part III 22

A Trip to the Moon (Méliès, 1902) Please pause the lecture and watch A Trip to the Moon. 23

The Innovation of Méliès • Special Effects – Stop tricks – Multiple exposure – Time-lapse photography – Dissolves – Hand painted cells to add color A Trip to the Moon (Méliès, 1902) 24

The Gay Shoe Clerk (Porter, 1902) Please pause the lecture and watch The Gay Shoe Clerk 25

Life of an American Fireman (Porter, 1902) Please pause the lecture and watch Life of an American Fireman 26

The Great Train Robbery (Porter, 1903) Please pause the lecture and watch The Great Train Robbery 27

The Innovation of Porter • Storytelling – Separate scenes – Parallel editing – Camera movement – Location shooting – Less stage-bound camera placement The Great Train Robbery (Porter, 1903) 28

The Suburbanite (Mc. Cutcheon, 1904) Please pause the lecture and watch The Suburbanite 29

J. Stuart Blackton Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) Princess Nicotine or The Smoke Fairy (1909) Please pause the lecture and watch Princess Nicotine 30

Nickelodeon Keith’s Theater, Washington, D. C. , 1913 31

Competition for Audiences Thomas Edison posing with Sir Thomas Lipton, the creator of Lipton Tea circa 1905 Lecture 1: Part IV 32

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

Motion Picture Patents Company 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, 34 Jacques A. Berst, Harry N. Marvin, Thomas Armat(? ), and George Scull(? ).

The 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. 35

Cleaning 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) 36

Early Cinema Regulation 1912 National Board of Censorship seal for the Edison Company 37

The Motion Picture Distributing and Sales Company 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. 38

The 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 films One of the most popular stars in her day: Theda Bara, “The Vamp” in Under the Yoke (1918) 39

Major 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

Assignments Sweeney Todd (2008) Florence Lawrence, the “Biograph Girl, ” circa 1910 Lecture 1: Part V 41

Reading • Douglas Gomery, “Hollywood as Industry” • Tom Gunning, “The Cinema of Attractions” • George Sadoul, “Founding Father: Louis Lumière in Conversation with George Sadoul” 42

E-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 1 Next Lecture: Narrative Integration Traffic in Souls (1913) 44