The Invention and Early Years of the Cinema, 1880s-1904

The Rise of Visual Culture in the 19th Century

• The 19th century saw an increase in visual forms of popular culture due to industrial mass production.
• Examples include lantern slides, photograph books, illustrated fiction, and elaborate dioramas.
• Popular entertainment included circuses, freak shows, amusement parks, and music halls.
• Dramatic troupes toured, performing in theaters and opera houses even in small towns.

The Advent of Cinema

• Traveling with entire theater productions was expensive.
• Access to major dioramas or amusement parks required long distances for most people.
• Few people could travel to see exotic lands shown in travel photographs or stereoscopes.
• Cinema offered a cheaper and simpler form of entertainment for the masses.
• Filmmakers could record performances and show them worldwide.
• Travelogues brought moving images of distant places to local audiences.
• Movies became the most popular visual art form of the late Victorian age.

Cinema as a Product of the Industrial Revolution

• The cinema was invented in the 1890s, emerging after the industrial revolution.
• Other inventions of this time period included the telephone (1876), phonograph (1877), and the automobile (1880s-1890s).
• Cinema was a technological device that became the foundation for a large industry.
• Cinema was a new form of entertainment and artistic medium.
• During its initial decade, inventors focused on improving film-making and showing machines.

Technological Requirements for the Invention of the Cinema

• Several technological requirements had to be met before cinema could be invented.

Persistence of Vision

• Scientists discovered that the human eye perceives motion when a series of slightly different images are shown rapidly (at least 16 frames per second).
• Optical toys were marketed to create the illusion of movement using a small number of altered drawings.
• Joseph Plateau and Simon Stampfer independently created the Phenakistoscope in 1832.
• The Zoetrope, invented in 1833, used drawings on a strip of paper inside a revolving drum.
• These toys repeated the same action, unlike films that present a continuous, evolving action.

Projection of Rapid Series of Images

• The capacity to project a rapid series of images onto a surface was needed.