Notes on Early Cinema: The Cinema of Attractions and Pre-1906 Developments
Early audiences attended exhibitions to see machines demonstrated (the Cinématographe, the Biograph, the Vitascope) rather than to view films themselves. Advertising emphasized the device and its technical wonder on variety bills, not narrative titles like The-Baby's Breakfast or The Black Diamond Express.
After the initial novelty period, the display of cinema’s possibilities continued beyond mere magic acts; the exhibitionist quality remained central and attractive to avant-garde artists.
Early close-ups often served as attractions rather than narrative punctuations. Examples include: Porter's The Gay Shoe Clerk (1903) with a close-up of the ankle; Biograph’s Photographing a Female Crook (1904) and Hooligan in Jail (1903) consisting of a single shot moving in toward the main character until mid-shot. Enlargement here is an attraction in itself, not a device for tension.
The term "attractions" is linked to Eisenstein’s idea of a unit of impression for theater; he proposed a montage of attractions designed to produce a sensual or psychological impact and to create a relation to the spectator unlike traditional illusionistic imitation. This model influenced later analysis of cinema as a collection of attractions rather than a solely narrative art.
The early avant-garde’s enthusiasm for film sprang from engagement with mass culture and the emerging entertainment industry, not merely a radical gesture against bourgeois culture. The expansion and democratization of entertainment and middle-class acceptance helped liberate popular entertainment from older forms.
Marinetti celebrated the variety theater for its esthetics of astonishment and stimulation and for cultivating a new kind of spectator who participates (sings along, heckles) rather than a passive voyeur; this concept helps frame early cinema’s relationship to vaudeville before 1905.
Early cinema must be understood in relation to vaudeville and other acts on the program; it was not simply an avant-garde pursuit but a primary exhibit among diverse acts, shaping its reception and exhibition practices.
In the Hollywood advertising policy, features are enumerated with an imperative to “See!”; this demonstrates the primal power of attraction beneath narrative regulation.
The Great Train Robbery (1903) illustrates early cinema’s ambivalent heritage: it disrupts the spectator with a direct, spectacular display (enlarged pistol in our faces) while also advancing linear narrative continuity.
The broader trajectory from attraction to narrative is linked to the cinema’s long-term evolution toward effects-driven cinema, yet these effects are “tamed attractions” that require focus and intensification to fulfill revolutionary potential (Eisenstein and Marinetti’s ideas).
The spectator’s role changes with each historical period; American avant-garde cinema begins to treat the attractions as a resource rather than a fixed paradigm, tracing a through-line from Méliès, Keaton, Un Chien andalou (1928), to Jack Smith.
The cinema’s roots lie in its exhibitionist, display-focused nature, with a kinship to fairground entertainment (roller coasters, mountains) and to early mass entertainments such as vaudeville and nickelodeons.
The essay treats early cinema not as a pure opposition to later narrative cinema but as a heterogeneous system whose tensions contributed to the form’s later development.
Key terms and concepts
Cinema of attractions: a form of early cinema focused on display, illusion, and audience contact rather than self-contained narrative world-building. It emphasizes the spectacle and the audience’s direct engagement with the screen.
Exhibitionism: a mode of cinema that displays its own visibility to the audience, often breaking a diegetic frame to address viewers directly (e.g., actors looking at camera, magicians performing).
Attraction vs. narrative: a historical tension in which early cinema prioritized spectacular moments (attractions) alongside or within narrative structures; later cinema shifted toward narrative continuity, with attractions either integrated or relegated to ancillary roles.
Spectator address: the way cinema speaks to or engages the viewer, which changes across periods (from direct exhibition to immersive narrative absorption).
Avant-garde context: early modernist writers and artists (Futurists, Dadaists, Surrealists) used cinema to critique traditional forms and to envision cinema as a transformative medium, often seeking to rescue it from conventional theater and literature.
Hale’s Tours: an example of non-narrative exhibition practices where films were shown as moving travelogues in a faux train car, with conductor and sound effects to replicate travel experiences.
Chase film: an early narrative subgenre that began as a pure attraction but developed into story-driven cinema; it blended spectacle with emerging linearity (e.g., Biograph’s Personal, 1904).
The “dose-up cut”: a technique noted by critics as an early form of rapid enlargement that foreshadowed later continuity methods, used primarily for exhibition appeal rather than narrative tension.
Historical context and development
Early cinema (before ) is marked by a dominance of the cinema of attractions, where presenting something visually striking was primary; even when narrative elements exist, they often function more as a frame for visual demonstration than as integrated storytelling.
Non-narrative and episodic formats dominated: trick films, magical effects, acrobatic displays, and short vaudeville-type segments coexisted with short actualities and travel/topical films.
Actuality films outnumbered fictional films up to , reflecting Lumière’s influence of “placing the world within one’s reach” through travel films and topical pieces.
Méliès’s method emphasizes stage effects and tableau-like sequences where the scenario is not primary; the text argues for uniting Lumière and Méliès along a continuum of presenting illusory views rather than a hard narrative divide.
The cinema of attractions is defined not merely by anti-narrative content but by its intrinsic exhibitionism and its direct appeal to the senses rather than to a diegetic world.
The look-at-camera gesture and audience-addressing performance are central to the attraction mode; this practice exists across comedians, magicians, and erotic or sensational material, forming a recognizable aesthetic of early film.
The variety-format structure (non-narrative sequences, trick films, and variety acts) places early cinema within a broader ecosystem of popular entertainment and mass culture.
The late-Teens reform movements criticized the non-narrative energy of vaudeville and cinema as stimulating nervousness and artificiality, but reform rhetoric also reveals the popular appeal and democratic aspects of early cinema.
Key examples and films mentioned
The Gay Shoe Clerk (1903): early close-up as exhibitionist attraction.
Photographing a Female Crook (1904), Hooligan in Jail (1903): single-shot, close-to-character setups emphasizing attraction.
Personal (1904, Biograph): a model for the chase film that blends narrative pursuit with mini-spectacle pauses where pursuing figures encounter obstacles.
How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the New York Herald Personal Columns (Edison version of Biograph’s Personal): offered as complete films or as separate shots for flexible display; illustrates distribution strategies for narrative vs. attracted shots.
Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon, 1902): an example of plotted trick film with a frame for magical demonstrations rather than a sustained narrative.
The Bride Retires (France, 1902): an erotic striptease scene where the performer winks at the audience, illustrating direct engagement with spectators outside diegetic narrative.
The Great Train Robbery (1903): serves as a hinge between attractions and narrative; demonstrates an assault on spectator perception (pistol to camera) while pushing toward linear storytelling.
Ben Hur (1924): shown with a timetable highlighting attractions (e.g., Star of Bethlehem, Jerusalem Restored, Fall of the House of Hur, The Last Supper) to manage audience expectations in a large-scale epic; demonstrates the ongoing role of attractions within major narrative features.
Exhibition practices and venue formats
Early showmen/exhibitors exercised significant control, including re-editing purchased films and supplying offscreen sound effects and commentary to shape the viewing experience.
Hale’s Tours represented a peak of exhibition form: trains-within-theater setups with ticket-takers and sound effects; the theater itself mimicked a train carriage, underscoring the attraction’s mass-entertainment roots.
The exhibition context connects cinema to the emergence of great amusement parks (e.g., Coney Island) and other mass entertainment infrastructures, suggesting a broader cultural shift toward large-scale, spectator-driven experiences.
Transition toward narrative cinema and its implications
From 1907 to roughly 1913, cinema undergoes a true narrativization: feature-length films rise, the theater becomes a model (famous actors in famous plays), and cinematic symbolism aligns more closely with dramatic storytelling.
Griffithian cinema anchors narrative at the center; the look-at-camera device becomes taboo, and cinematic devices integrate into character psychology and fictional worlds.
Despite the rise of narrative cinema, the attractions ethos does not disappear; it migrates underground in avant-garde practices and persists in certain genres (notably musical) and in the mass entertainment ecosystem (movie palaces of the 1920s incorporated varied forms—newsreels, cartoons, sing-alongs—alongside features).
The balance between spectacle and narrative remains a constant theme in film history, as seen in the dialectic discussed by Laura Mulvey on spectacle vs. narrative and Donald Crafton on slapstick’s balancing act between pure visual gags and narrative development.
The cinema’s transformation is thus framed as a series of shifts in how the spectator is addressed and how cinematic devices are used to manage attention, emotion, and interpretation.
Notes on scholarly framing and sources
The analysis emphasizes a methodological shift away from treating early cinema as merely a precursor to narrative cinema toward acknowledging its own plural, attraction-centered logic and its relationship to mass culture.
The discussion draws on a wide range of sources (footnotes 1–18), including Léger, Métier’s notes on early filmmaking, Metz on voyeurism, Musser on Hale’s Tours, and later critics who connect early cinema to modernist movements and to the broader context of popular entertainment.
The author collaborates with André Gaudreault on the history of early cinema and its relation to the cinema of attractions, arguing that the heterogeneity of early film warrants a rethinking of film history and form beyond a purely narrative-centered framework.
Ethical, philosophical, and practical implications
The early cinema’s exhibitionist approach raises questions about spectatorship, consent, and the relationship between audience and screen—especially in scenes designed to shock, titillate, or confront viewers directly.
The tension between the exhibitionist format and the later narrative code suggests a broader question about art’s ability to manipulate attention and the responsibilities of filmmakers and exhibitors in shaping audience experiences.
The persistence of attractions in later cinema implies that popular entertainment has always served as a critical resource for innovation, even as narrative forms become more dominant; this has implications for how we assess cinematic progress and the role of spectacle in culture.
Key references and notes (selected)
Léger, A Critical Essay on the Plastic Qualities of Abel Gance's Film The Wheel; Functions of Painting.
Eisenstein, How I Became a Film Director; Montage of Attractions; notes on spectator impact and the role of attractions in cinema history.
Musser, American Vitagraph 1897-1901; Hale's Tours and exhibition practices.
Méliès, Importance du Scénario; early stage effects vs. narrative emphasis.
Marinetti, Futurist Manifestos; the spectator’s transformation and the energy of popular spectacle.
Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema; dialectic between spectacle and narrative.
Donald Crafton, The Pie and the Chase; balance between slapstick/gag and narrative development.
Noël Burch, Correction Please: How We Got into Pictures; analysis of conflict between exhibitionism and diegesis.
The Great Train Robbery (1903) as a reference point for the integration (and tension) of attraction and narrative in early cinema.
The evolution of exhibition spaces (Hale’s Tours, nickelodeons) and the continued influence of mass entertainment on film form.
Summary takeaway
Early cinema is best understood as a cinema of attractions: an exhibitionist, display-driven form intimately connected to mass culture and vaudeville. This mode coexisted with, interfused with, and eventually gave way to narrative cinema. Yet its legacy persists in later film practices, and its methods remain a crucial site for rethinking film history, form, and spectator relations.
Key terms recap
Attractions, exhibitionism, cinema of attractions, spectator address, montage of attractions, narrative vs. spectacle, actuality, trick films, vaudeville, Hale’s Tours, chase film, feature films, diegesis, mise-en-scène, mass culture, modernism, avant-garde