A History Of Early Film

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"This important collection reprints influential works in the early history of moving pictures in the UK. Ranging from the period of invention in the early 1890s to the First World War, the pieces include the seminal 1917 report to the Cinema Commission of Enquiry The Cinema--Its Present Position and Future Possibilities; Colin Bennett's 1913 Handbook of Kinematography; articles from trade journals published during the 1910s; and more."--Publisher description.

With more than 250 images, new information on international cinema—especially Polish, Chinese, Russian, Canadian, and Iranian filmmakers—an expanded section on African-American filmmakers, updated discussions of new works by major American directors, and a new section on the rise of comic book movies and computer generated special effects, this is the most up to date resource for film history courses in the twenty-first century.

Bordwell scrutinizes the theories of style launched by various film historians and celebrates a century of cinema. The author examines the contributions of many directors and shows how film scholars have explained stylistic continuity and change.

Volume 3 of A History of Early Film examines critical responses to early cinema, including the impassioned thoughts of one of the first film critics, the American poet Vachel Lindsay and considers some contemporary judgements of the social aspects of moving pictures. The volume also includes the 1917 report The Cinema: Its Present Position and Future Possibilities...which provides a unique record of the attitudes towards the cinema by its British audiences exhibitors, producers, guardians of morality and those responsible for licensing.

Volume 1 of A History of Early Film begins with the period of technical invention. The story of Edison's peepshow Kinetoscope, set up in arcades from April 1894, is told by W. K. L. Dickson. 'Lantern Projection of Moving Objects' heralds the arival of the first screenings in Britain, arranged by Auguste and Louis Lumi©·re, Robert Paul and Birt Acres, announcing the new medium as a progressive development of optical moving-image toys, magic lantern projection and the Kinetoscope. It includes an evocative selection of advertisements for the earliest films and cinematographic apparatus of 1896-7. The last part of the volume covers 1901-6 as the medium of cinema developed.