Introductory Assumptions
Early Cinema (1895 - Early 20th Century)
Motion pictures emerged in 1895, rapidly becoming both an art and a business.
Initial audiences valued image clarity over content.
Narrative Techniques
Filmmakers realized camera work shapes narratives, similar to novels.
Narrative techniques range from subtle to self-conscious, like literary styles.
Film evolved rapidly in a century, unlike the millennia-long development of narrative fiction.
Film Poetics
Film history is a new art with its own “poetics,” related to various art forms.
Early films mirrored stage poetics, but this approach was soon abandoned.
The shot is the basic unit, allowing flexible space and combinations.
"Unity of action" (Hugo Münsterberg) involves creating continuity, meaning, and tension through images.
Sound integration initially used stage-based techniques but evolved.
Historical Influence
Film history focuses on influential movies with rapid international distribution.
Release dates are key to understanding a film's influence, like publication dates for novels.
Completion and release dates are both given if significantly different.
Dates refer to the release year in the country of origin; U.S. dates are included if relevant.
Titles are given in the original language if widely known.
Onscreen titles are authoritative.
Professional names take precedence.
Legal signatures and tombstones resolve spelling disputes.
Auteur Theory
Film historians often value a single, controlling artistic vision.
The auteur theory identifies the director as the film's “author.”
Movies are collaborative, involving directors, writers, cinematographers, and composers.
An auteur typically writes and edits, or works closely with those who do.
Auteur directors develop a vision throughout their careers.
Industry and Commerce
Film history must consider the industry, cinema as a business, cultural product, commodity, and technology.
Commercial priorities often outweigh artistic ones.
High production costs reflect the complexity of filmmaking.
Producers shoot scenes out of sequence for efficiency.
Production budgets for color films can exceed per day.
Revenue comes from ticket sales, rentals, television rights, and merchandising.
Film's history as mass entertainment is tied to its business aspect.
Audience and Culture
Film audiences have evolved.
Movies have gained intellectual respectability and social necessity.
Cultural factors influence film qualities and quantities.
Hits result from sufficient demand and cultural response.
Films convey explicit and implicit cultural content.
Contemporary theorists expose cultural values in films.
Ideological analysis is used by feminist critics.
Women in films are often stereotyped.
Feminist films aim to define women independently.
Radical film theory views our perception as a cultural construct.
Renaissance perspective privileges a single viewer.
Technology
Movies rely on various technologies.
Technological advances are initially novelties, later integrated as tools.
Film technology enables artistic effects.
Research improves film technology.
Conclusion
Movies became the dominant 20th-century art.
A “short history” highlights trends.
American film history is emphasized for American readers.
Cinema is an international medium.
Technical terms are explained; further details are available elsewhere.
Focus is primarily on fiction films.
Other film types require separate study.
Film history is an interpretive, evolving narrative.