Like everything cinema had to start somewhere and the following blog post is what I believe are the five defining moments of pre 1930's cinema which set the foundations for what we consider cinema today.
The following blog post if part one of course work towards Cinema and Society.
1. La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon (1895)
Described as the "first film" the Lumiére Brothers, Auguste and Louis, were the creators of a short piece of video footage called (in french) "La Sortie de l'Usine Lumiére á Lyon". The footage is of workers leaving the Lumiére Factory in the outskirts of Lyon. The film was only 46 seconds long and was shown along with nine other films at the screening at the Grand Café in a small room in the basement of the building in 1895. I believe this is a defining moment of pre 1930's cinema as prior to this film screening there was no film footage of this style.
2. The Enchanted Drawing (1900)
Long before the likes of Disney and Pixar, animation was much simpler. The above video is of what I think could be described as one of the five defining moments to occur in cinemas before 1930 and definitely the first animation. Filmed in 1900, J. Stuart Blackton, a film producer, also appears in the footage, creating the drawing. Blackton was the founder of Vitagraph Studios.
3. "The Birth of a Nation" - D.W. Griffith
D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" was the highest grossing film of the "silent film" era. It is readily recognized in today's cinema that storylines can be quite controversial however "The Birth of a Nation" faced a lot of criticism as the African-American characters were not played by African-American actors but white actors with their faces painted black. The film was originally split into two with an interval between, the first part of the film focusing on American before the civil war and the second part of the film was about American rebuilding itself. The film focused a lot on racism and featured the Klu Klux Klan. I feel this film is one of the defining moments of the pre 1930's cinema as it uses many new filming techniques, for example using actual history such as the emergence of the KKK through a fiction depiction.
4. Jazz Singer (1927)
The Jazz Singer by Alan Crosland was not the first film to contain dialogue, D.W. Griffith's had already made "Dream Street" in 1921, however this was the first film to feature many songs being performed by the stars with musical accompliments throughout, a breakthrough for the time. Warner Brothers premiered the film in New York in October 1929. The film was made using the vitaphone, opposed to Fox's Fotofilm, which some critics may argue produced a better result. I believe this is the first musical of cinema, and therefore fits within my top 5 defining moments of pre 1930's cinema.
5. Nanook of the North
With the prevelance of reality television and films in todays society, was Nanook of the North (1922) the first reality feature film? Originally it was argued that Robert J. Flaherty's film was a documentary, following the lives of of a family of Inuits however it has since been proven that he set up some of the scenes within the film, perhaps for the audiences pleasure. I feel like this film could fit in both the documentary and fictional reality bracket as for the period, it was the first of its kind.
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