History of Cinema
Kategorie: Angličtina (celkem: 879 referátů a seminárek)
Informace o referátu:
- Přidal/a: anonymous
- Datum přidání: 05. července 2007
- Zobrazeno: 1912×
Příbuzná témata
History of Cinema
The cooperation of Etienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge in film research in the late 19th century realized that films as they are known today were a practical possibility. In 1891 was designed and patented fully developed camera, called the Kinetograph by W.K.L. Dickson who was working under the direction of Thomas Alva Edison. Dickson also designed the viewing apparatus called the Kinetoscope. Kinetoscope was contained within a large box, and only permitted the images to be viewed by one person at a time looking into it through a peephole, after starting the machine by inserting a coin. But a failure in this form left the way free for Louis and Auguste, the Lumière brothers to perfect their apparatus, the Cinématographe. With their Cinématographe they gave the first successful show of projected pictures to an audience in Paris in December 1895. After a few years the 35-mm wide Edison film and the 16-frames-per-second projection speed of the Lumière Cinématographe became standard. The earliest films showed just one scene, which ran for about a minute, which was all that the standard lenghts of film allowed. Most of the early multi-shot films were made by Georges Méliès. In his films, well-known stories such as Cinderella (1899) are told in a series of disconnected scenes joined by dissolves, as was done at the time with slides in a magic-lantern show. Méliès`s long story films were the most commercially successful of all in the first few years of cinema, and they led other film-makers towards producing longer films. Méliès`s films made no real contribution to the development of film construction as we know it. The first known films were Barbershop Scene and A trick on the Gardener. In 1905 was change, because by that time there were enough films that were several minutes long to provide the programming for cinemas running full-time.An actor and a playwright D.W. Griffith was the first film-maker to appreciated fully and apply the existing techniques of film construction to dramatic storytelling. In 1907 the Selig company of Chicago moved some of its production to California and it was gradually followed by most of the others.
Mack Sennet applied the Griffith style of filming to comedy. In Europe, the most popular comics had been music-hall clowns such as Boireau, also known as Cretinetti. As films several reels long became common, scriptwriting became more important.
Also, the script should alternate action, drama and romance from scene to scene throughout the screenplay. The war years produced many films, that utillized Symbolism, allegories and parables.
The most prominent persons of film such as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith realized their own value joined together in 1919 to form their own company, United Artists. The major American production, distribution and exhibition companies as they are known today were all consolidated by the mid-1920s, with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros., Columbia, and Fox joining Universal, Paramount and United Artists, which had been formed several years before. The most popular comedian in 1920s was Harold Lloyd. He played a realistic character in films such as Safety Last (1923).
Sound film started in Western Europe a couple of years later than in the United States, and even later in other countries. It was about year 1927, when Al Johnson spoke a few lines in The Jazz Singer. This had an immense succes at audience, and therefore was started making of sound films. The major technical development of the period was the first realization of a successful system of full-colour cinematography – Technicolor. This was used in live action filming from 1934, but mainly only in very special productions such as The Wizzard of Oz and Gone With the Wind because of its cost.
During and after World War II, there was a greater tendency to deal with unpleasant side of life. In following years were shooting films, which included also a new themes such as war, prostitution, homosexuality, juvenile delinquency, etc. and were also longer than before. Here are some of them: A Street Car Named Desire (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Citizen Kane(1941)...
In 1960s appeared innovations which picked up New Wave of directors, who shot films like You`re a Big Boy Now (1967) or Greetings (1968) by Brian De Palma.
1970s brought new trend in the Hollywood production. Films were extremly expensive, big-budget, all-action pictures and many of them were on science-fiction subjects. This trend was partly begun by George Lucas with Star Wars (1977), but the most commercially successful film-maker in this area is Steven Spielberg.
His films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) retained the classical cinema`s complexity and variation of mood.
Vocabulary:
Cooperation – working together
Research – organized study
Permit – allow something
Peephole – small opening
Failure – lack of succes
Dissolve – become absorbed in liquid
Slide – move smoothly
Contribution – something given
Appreciate – value somebody or something highly
Reel – section of cinema film
Common – everyday, ordinary
Utilize – make use of something
Consolidate – strengthen your position
Immense – huge, excellent
Budget – summary of income and spending.