Film Histories: The Emergence of Cinema and The Cinema of Attractions
The Emergence of Cinema and the Cinema of Attractions
Introduction to the Emergence of Cinema
The emergence of cinema is inextricably linked to a pre-history of visual experimentation and various practices of visual representation. These practices include early forms like magic lantern shows, dioramas, and panoramas.
Specific technological advancements made in the late century laid the groundwork for cinema's rapid growth as both an artistic and an industrial form.
The period before the film industry achieved relative stability is explored in Tom Gunning's influential essay, 'The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, its Spectator and the Avant-Garde'. This study focuses on the unique pleasures of early cinema and the distinct, curiously modern modes of film display and exhibition it offered.
The history of motion-pictures cannot be attributed to a single invention or inaugural event.
While pioneers like Thomas Edison and the Lumière brothers are central to the 'birth of cinema' legends, cinema's emergence was a culmination of technological and entrepreneurial developments in the .
Individuals capitalized on new photographic capacities, the invention of celluloid, and improved image projection machines, seeing commercial opportunities in showing moving images to paying audiences.
Cinema didn't begin as a fully established industry with fixed aesthetics, but rather as a novelty entertainment among many new visual forms in popular culture at the close of the century.
Pre-Cinematic Visual Technologies
Camera Obscura: Experiments dating back to the century involved dark chambers projecting outside images onto a screen.
Magic Lanterns: Devices using artificial light to project images painted on glass slides. They presented a succession of images for storytelling, often illustrating satirical scenes, theatrical tragedies, and miracle plays.
Phantasmagoria: An advanced form of lantern display where multiple lanterns projected slides from behind a screen to create composite images. It required several skilled technicians for complex screen performances, popular in theatres and museums, particularly appealing to sophisticated urban audiences in France, England, and the United States in the late and early centuries ($ ext{p. } 4$).
Century Developments: Lantern displays formed the basis for screen projection technologies and cultural practices.
Scientific advancements in the study of vision, coupled with industrialization producing new machine technologies (like the telegraph, telephone, and phonograph), created necessary pre-conditions for motion-picture development.
Optical Toys: Fascinated by moving images, inventions like the Zoetrope (invented in ) gave the illusion of continuous movement by spinning drawings in a drum.
Anatomical Motion Experiments: Eadweard Muybridge's experiments in (e.g., galloping horses) refined the study of moving forms and photographic recording methods. His special lantern to project these images significantly contributed to 'screen practice' ($ ext{p. } 4$).
Key Technological Developments in the Late Century
The fundamental mechanism for producing moving images involves a sequence of images rapidly passing before a light source. This relies on two types of devices:
Cameras capable of exposing images onto a film strip.
Projectors designed to pass this film strip rapidly in front of a light beam.
Illusion of Movement: To achieve continuous movement, a projector must display frames per second, stopping intermittently to expose each frame ($ ext{p. } 4$).
George Eastman: Introduced celluloid roll film in , a transparent and flexible material suitable for cameras and projection machines.
Thomas Edison and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson (New Jersey): Developed core technologies in the US.
Kinetograph camera (for recording).
Kinetoscope viewing device: A machine that mechanically pulled film stock past an electric lamp and shutter using toothed gears. It was a peephole viewing system; individuals bent over to press their eyes to holes in a self-standing machine ($ ext{p. } 4$).
First displayed at the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in , designed as popular amusement.
Edison rapidly commercialized it, leading to the first Kinetoscope parlour in New York City in , housing ten viewing machines. These parlours showed short films (under seconds) made at Edison's 'Black Maria' studio, often featuring vaudeville acts, dancers, acrobats, or sporting figures like Gentleman Jim Corbett ($ ext{p. } 5$).
Early Kinetoscope content was often voyeuristic and sexually charged, aimed at masculine amusement, though films featuring bodybuilders like Sandow also fascinated women. Films later diversified for mixed-sex audiences ($ ext{p. } 5$).
Lumière Brothers and the Cinématographe
Concurrent with Edison's Kinetoscope, Auguste and Louis Lumière developed the compact camera/projection device known as the Cinématographe ($ ext{p. } 5$).
First Public Demonstration: Held in at the Grand Café in Paris, where the Lumières showed short films to a fashionable audience.
Examples included views of the family, a comic scene of a boy stepping on a garden hose, and a train entering a station.
The film 'Arrival of a Train at the Station at Ciôtat' (1895) generated myths of viewers fleeing their seats, though evidence suggests audiences were more sophisticated and understood the difference between image and reality ($ ext{p. } 5$).
Robert William Paul's film 'The Countryman and the Cinematograph' (1901) directly mocked perceived naive audiences, demonstrating that viewers were encouraged to see themselves as discerning consumers ($ ext{p. } 5$).
International Expansion: The Cinématographe's portability and adaptability allowed the Lumières and their representatives to tour Europe and America, swiftly making cinema an international phenomenon. It enabled early public screenings in various countries, establishing French film production's early foothold. This success contributed to the commercial rise of the Pathé Company (established by Charles Pathé in ), which became the largest film company by the mid-$1900s$ with global distribution offices ($ ext{p. } 6$).
Edison's Shift to Screen Projection and Early Rivalries
Recognizing the Kinetoscope's declining popularity and the Cinématographe's success, Edison quickly shifted to screen projection. He acquired patents for the Vitascope, a projector designed by Thomas Armat and C. Francis Jenkins. Its first public premiere was in at Koster and Hall's Music Hall in New York ($ ext{p. } 6$).
The clear commercial potential, especially in the US market, led to a rapid increase in independent exhibitors and projection machines, fostering intense competition among major film producers.
Legal Disputes: A notable rivalry in the United States was between the Edison Manufacturing Company and American Mutoscope (later American Mutoscope and Biograph), which produced peepshow and projected films on sharper film ($ ext{p. } 6$).
Edison, known for aggressive patent enforcement, sued American Mutoscope for infringement in . However, in , a landmark case ruled that American Mutoscope's camera was sufficiently different, using a friction roller system instead of Edison's sprocket-driven mechanism ($ ext{p. } 6$).
These legal battles over motion-picture equipment defined early American film industry history, involving American Mutoscope and Biograph, as well as Edison's other major rival, the Vitagraph Company of America ($ ext{p. } 6$).
Vitagraph Company of America: Established in by James Stuart Blackton and Albert Smith, Vitagraph successfully met the demand for moving pictures during the Spanish–American War (1897–98). They produced topical war images by staging films on their rooftop studio in New York City, quickly becoming a primary American film producer. Like American Mutoscope and Biograph, Vitagraph operated under the constant threat of copyright lawsuits, which were only briefly alleviated by the ruling against Edison ($ ext{p. } 7$).
British Contributions to Early Cinema
After America and France, Britain quickly became a significant film-producing country in the late . Due to Edison's failure to patent the Kinetoscope internationally, Robert William Paul was legally able to replicate the viewing machine ($ ext{p. } 7$).
When Edison attempted to control his technology by cutting off film supply, Paul developed his own camera and began production, demonstrating 'Rough Sea At Dover' to the Royal Photographic Institute in .
Paul facilitated the widespread exhibition of films across Britain by selling projectors rather than renting them, with films primarily shown in theatres or music halls. He also opened the first British film studio in .
The 'Brighton School': Key figures like George Albert Smith and James Williamson operated studios on the south coast of Britain, alongside filmmakers like Cecil Hepworth and Paul himself in London. This group was renowned for early experimentation with special effects and editing, as seen in films such as:
'The Big Swallow' (1901): A short film where a man swallows the camera.
'How it Feels to be Run Over' (1900, Hepworth): A single-shot film creating the illusion of a motorcar colliding with the spectator/camera ($ ext{p. } 7$).
Early English cinema was innovative, internationally popular, and frequently imitated, exemplified by R. W. Paul's 'The Countryman and the Cinematograph' ($ ext{p. } 7$).
The 'Cinema of Attractions' (c. 1895-1907)
International Scope: From its inception (1895-1907), cinema was international in its development and reach. This period was characterized by a distinct industrial structure, film style, and exhibition practices, laying frameworks for future motion-picture practice while revealing a different understanding of cinema ($ ext{p. } 7$).
Film Style (1894-1902):
Dominated by one-shot 'actualities' – often non-fictional scenes.
Included short travelogues of exotic locales, films of topical news events (parades, world fairs, funerals), local scenes, crowds, and sporting events (football matches, horse races). Operators of the Lumière Cinématographe often made 'scenics' of local interest ($ ext{p. } 7$).
Lumière's 'Workers Leaving the Lumière factory' (1895) indicated the audience's fascination with the simple recording and reproduction of moving images. Cinema offered new visual experiences, allowing people to witness previously unseen events, people, and places ($ ext{p. } 7$).
Tableau Style: Actualities were made with a stationary camera positioned to capture the entire length of the human body. Early cinema, concerned with individual shots rather than connections between them, replicated perspectives from visual media like postcards, stereographs, and theatre imagery. Its appeal was based on visual spectacle, not continuous linear narratives ($ ext{p. } 7$).
Tom Gunning's Conception: Gunning termed this 'the cinema of attractions,' a film style less reliant on storytelling conventions and the creation of temporal/causal relations between shots, and more on the sheer novelty of moving pictures ($ ext{p. } 8$).
This doesn't imply a lack of narrative or experimental elements; historians show one-shot films drew heavily on narrative and visual conventions from other popular entertainment forms like vaudeville (pantomime, melodrama) and theatre ($ ext{p. } 8$).
Gunning's work, since the mid-, shifts aesthetic film history focus from 'classic' works to 'signifying practices,' examining aesthetic norms of specific periods and historical film-audience relationships ($ ext{p. } 12$).
He argues the primacy of spectacle and theatricality in early cinema is linked to the avant-garde and echoes in Hollywood's interest in visual and sensory enthrallment ($ ext{p. } 13$).
Georges Méliès: Innovation in Staged Film Theatre
Georges Méliès was a significant innovator, a performing magician who built a camera based on R.W. Paul's equipment and integrated film into his theatre shows, employing camera tricks for fantasy illusions ($ ext{p. } 9$).
Pioneering Techniques: In his first trick film, 'The Vanishing Lady' (1896), Méliès transformed a woman into a skeleton by stopping the camera between shots, pioneering stop-motion techniques for special effects. He also spliced film to create specific filmic realities, a contribution to film editing often overlooked until recently ($ ext{p. } 9$).
His stop-motion involved maintaining framing and viewpoint unity for a seamless illusion, a more complex technique than often credited. This disproves the 'primitive' view of pre-narrative cinema, showing Méliès' sophisticated control over spectator perceptions by blending magic theatre and new cinematic technology ($ ext{p. } 9$).
Star Film Company: Founded in , it became a leading producer of fiction films with distribution offices globally (London, Barcelona, Berlin, New York). He built a glass-enclosed studio in to experiment with the medium's creative potential ($ ext{p. } 9$).
Multi-Shot Narratives: 'The Dreyfus Affair' (1899) was a -shot film, released as separate films (common practice), but could be combined to tell a contemporaneous story ($ ext{p. } 9$).
'A Trip to the Moon' (1902): Méliès' most notable fantasy film, a multi-shot comic science-fiction film that used editing techniques (overlapping action, dissolves) to link shots and organize cinematic space and time. It used a story to assemble decors and trick effects, compelling Méliès to consider spatial coherence across episodes, even if he didn't explicitly see himself as a 'storyteller' ($ ext{p. } 9$).
Exhibition Practices and Audience Experience
While cinema later moved towards narrative integration, its early years were dominated by one-shot actualities, evolving from brief peepshow amusements to a component of variety programming ($ ext{p. } 9$).
Lacking Dedicated Venues: Before , specific film exhibition venues were rare. Film was incorporated into diverse American and European entertainment, showing in vaudeville theatres, music halls, cafés, temporary storefronts, fairs, by traveling showmen (who might lecture in churches or opera houses) ($ ext{p. } 9$).
'Vagrant Cultural Form': The film experience varied significantly based on location, context, and exhibitor's performance style ($ ext{p. } 9$).
Accompaniment: Film presentations were typically accompanied by music (piano, or a house orchestra in vaudeville theatres). Exhibitors might also synchronize sound effects (gunfire, hammer blows) or provide live lectures or announce titles to explain the action. Film was rarely 'silent' in its exhibition style ($ ext{p. } 9$).
Exhibitor's Control: Exhibitors had considerable power over how films were presented and their ultimate meaning. With prevalent one-shot films, they could buy series of shots to run together or combine a few shots with other films or lantern slides. They made decisions on scene arrangement and running order. Rather than seeking thematic or narrative continuity, exhibitors often opted for diversity and contrast, placing disparate one-shot units sequentially (e.g., Niagara Falls next to children playing, then a literary tableau from 'Rip Van Winkle') ($ ext{p. } 10$).
Audience Demographics: Early film audiences were heterogeneous, encompassing working, middle, and elite classes. While vaudeville and opera houses offered varied pricing ( to USD), storefronts provided films for as little as USD. Amusement parks like Coney Island offered film among cheap distractions for the urban working class ($ ext{p. } 10$).
Exhibitors tailored presentations based on the economic status and cultural orientation of social groups, distinguishing 'clean entertainment' from (male-oriented) burlesque films, and appealing to refined tastes in auspicious venues or under church sponsorship ($ ext{p. } 10$).
Emergence of Full-Length Programmes and Industrial Shifts (1897-1903)
By , different kinds of full-length screen entertainment became popular, showcasing films that could run for an hour and focused on a single non-fiction subject ($ ext{p. } 10$).
Charles Musser (in 'The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907' (1990)) argued these demonstrated the exhibitor's creative role and 'reassertion of social and cultural differences in the realm of reception or spectatorship' ($ ext{p. } 10$).
In America, these evening entertainments centered on three genres:
Re-enactments of prize fights: Appealed to those favoring sensational amusements, often drawing opposition from religious groups and cultural elites for their 'barbarism.'
Passion Plays: Appealed to devout churchgoers, staging single-shot scenes from the life of Jesus.
Travel lectures: Embodied principles of refined culture, targeting elite groups in prestigious locations like the Brooklyn Institute. These integrated moving pictures into cultural practice while maintaining social class distinctions ($ ext{p. } 10$).
By , hundreds of projectors were in use. Despite the popularity of full-length programs, many films became stale as producers sold rather than rented them, leading to wide circulation, resale, and audience boredom with predictable subject matter ($ ext{p. } 10$).
Revitalization of the Industry: New types of films helped revive the industry:
The Spanish–American War (1897–98) gave film a patriotic and ideological purpose ($ ext{p. } 10$).
The establishment of film as a permanent vaudeville attraction in significantly boosted film companies, as vaudeville managers required new pictures weekly. This supported major New York firms like Edison, and emerging centers in Chicago (William Selig) and Philadelphia (Sigmund Lubin) ($ ext{p. } 10$).
A significant industrial challenge in early cinema was establishing stability in product supply and dependable outlets, complicated by patent disputes, technological incompatibility, intense competition, and growing audience indifference to film programming, exacerbated by stagnant formulas to attract audiences ($ ext{p. } 11$).
Production Increase: This period saw production companies become the primary site of cinematic creativity, taking control over editing and multi-shot narrative construction (responsibilities previously shared with exhibitors). A commercial crisis drove companies to seek new cinematic forms, leading to an emerging conception of cinema centered around storytelling ($ ext{p. } 11$).
Edwin S. Porter and the Development of Narrative
Edwin S. Porter, initially a film projectionist at the Edison Manufacturing Company, was tasked with improving cameras and projectors. Coinciding with the construction of a glass rooftop studio in , he became a major Edison filmmaker ($ ext{p. } 11$).
'Life of an American Fireman' (1902): Often credited as the first story film. Porter drew inspiration from Méliès' 'A Trip to the Moon' and James Williamson's 'Fire!' (1901) to create a short rescue story. The film depicts a fireman's dream vision of fire, followed by the rescue scene shown twice: once from inside the house and once from outside, using overlapping action ($ ext{p. } 11$).
An early, re-edited version at the Museum of Modern Art led scholars to mistakenly credit Porter with pioneering continuity editing, matching time and space across cuts. However, the original film (Library of Congress) heavily relied on extreme narrative repetition, a form of 'non-linear continuity' common to the period, differing radically from later classical Hollywood linear narrative ($ ext{p. } 11$).
Critics like Tom Gunning and Charles Musser emphasize understanding early cinema on its own terms, recognizing 'Life of an American Fireman' for its ruptures and repetitions, as much as any similarities to later filmmaking styles ($ ext{p. } 11$).
Porter's early work, nonetheless, hints at a move towards continuity in storytelling, as seen in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (1903), which linked one-shot scenes from Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel using printed intertitles ($ ext{p. } 12$).
'The Great Train Robbery' (1903): Porter's most significant commercial success, one of the first cinematic Westerns. It used shots to tell a train robbery story, employing the popular chase structure to connect scenes (robbery, telegraph operator alerting authorities, posse ambushing thieves) ($ ext{p. } 12$).
The film famously includes an emblematic shot of outlaw leader Barnes firing his gun directly at the camera. The Edison catalogue indicated this shot could appear at either the beginning or end, signifying it as a story film that did not fully employ classical narrative techniques. Shots were not 'motivated' by deliberate narrative function or designed to explain character action ($ ext{p. } 12$).
Porter's work, while not linear in classical narrative terms, indicated the rise of fiction filmmaking in the early , moving from actuality to story-based films. These still drew conventions from pre-existing media, but major aesthetic and industrial transformations were beginning to affect cinema's style and organization, transitioning from novelty, itinerant entertainment to a stable commercial mass medium ($ ext{p. } 12$).
Gunning's 'Cinema of Attractions' - A Deeper Dive
In his seminal essay, Tom Gunning explores early cinema before the industry's stability, focusing on its pleasures and modes of display that made it a distinctive visual attraction ($ ext{p. } 12$).
Spectacle as the Core: Gunning argues the cinematic apparatus itself was a source of spectacle, amplified by performers who self-consciously acknowledged the camera and interacted with the audience. Unlike narrative cinema's continuous action, the 'cinema of attractions' directly solicits spectator attention, inciting visual curiosity and providing pleasure through exciting spectacle – a unique event, fictional or documentary, interesting in itself ($ ext{p. } 12$).
Methodology: Gunning focuses on film's development as an artistic form, challenging older aesthetic film history that prioritized 'classic' works. His approach emphasizes 'signifying practices,' aesthetic norms of specific periods, and historically unique film-audience relationships ($ ext{p. } 12$).
Evidence and Implications: Gunning's arguments about exhibition and spectatorship are derived from his reading of film texts, highlighting how cinema established itself as an attraction. He suggests the primacy of spectacle and theatricality in early cinema is entwined with the history of the avant-garde but also informs Hollywood's ongoing concern with visual enthrallment ($ ext{p. } 13$).
Characteristics of the Cinema of Attractions (Gunning's Perspective):
Exhibitionist Cinema: Contrasts with Christian Metz's 'voyeuristic' narrative cinema. It's about 'making images seen' (Fernand Léger), directly showing something ($ ext{p. } 14$).
Direct Address: Actors frequently look at the camera, a practice later taboo for breaking realistic illusion. This action, performed with 'brio,' established contact with the audience (e.g., comedians smirking, conjurors bowing and gesturing) ($ ext{p. } 15$).
Rupturing the Fictional World: It willingly ruptures a self-enclosed fictional world to solicit spectator attention ($ ext{p. } 15$).
Erotic Films: Exhibitionism was literal in early erotic films (e.g., Pathé advertising 'scènes grivoises d'un caractère piquant'), which were later driven underground. Noël Burch's 'Correction Please: How We Got into Pictures' (1979) highlights 'The Bride Retires' (1902), where a woman undresses for the camera, winking at the audience, revealing a conflict between exhibitionism and fictional diegesis ($ ext{p. } 15$).
Trick Films: The dominant non-actuality genre before , these were series of displays and magical attractions rather than narrative sketches. Many were plotless; even plotted ones like 'Voyage dans la lune' (1902) used story merely as a frame for demonstrating cinematic magic ($ ext{p. } 15$).
Modes of Exhibition: Early showmen re-edited films, provided off-screen supplements (sound effects, commentary). Hale's Tours, a large chain of pre- film theatres, arranged their venues like train cars with conductors and sound effects, linking cinematic viewing to fairground attractions ($ ext{p. } 16$).
Cinema Itself as an Attraction: Audiences initially attended exhibitions to see the new technological wonders (Cinématographe, Biograph, Vitascope), not necessarily specific films. This display of cinematic possibilities continued beyond the novelty period ($ ext{p. } 16$).
Close-ups as Attractions: Unlike later narrative uses, early close-ups served as attractions in their own right, not for narrative punctuation (e.g., Porter's 'The Gay Shoe Clerk' (1903), where a lady exposes her ankle; Biograph films like 'Photographing a Female Crook' (1904) and 'Hooligan in Jail' (1903) used close-ups of characters as the film's main point) ($ ext{p. } 16$).
Summary of Attraction-based Filmmaking: Direct audience address, offering an attraction by a film showman. Theatrical display dominates narrative absorption, emphasizing shock or surprise over unfolding story or creating a diegetic universe. Little energy is spent on psychologically motivated characters. Its energy moves outward towards an acknowledged spectator ($ ext{p. } 17$).
Eisenstein's Influence: Gunning borrows 'attraction' from Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, who sought a 'unit of impression' for theatre that would aggressively subject the spectator to 'sensual or psychological impact,' challenging realistic representation. Eisenstein drew the term from fairground attractions like the roller coaster ('American Mountains' in Russia) ($ ext{p. } 17$).
This highlights the shared exhibitionist confrontation between early cinema and later avant-garde practice, differing greatly from Eisenstein's 'experimentally regulated and mathematically calculated' montage ($ ext{p. } 17$).
The Transition to Narrative Cinema and Enduring Attractions
Avant-garde Connection: The early avant-garde (Futurists, Dadaists, Surrealists like Fernand Léger) were enthusiastic about film's radical possibilities, seeing it as a new mass culture offering distinct stimuli and liberation from traditional arts. They praised its 'exhibitionist quality' and 'direct stimulation,' contrasting it with the 'static, stupid voyeur' of traditional theatre (Marinetti) ($ ext{p. } 18$).
Vaudeville Context: Film, until around , was a single attraction in vaudeville programs, surrounded by unrelated acts in a non-narrative, often illogical sequence. Even in emerging nickelodeons, short films were presented in a variety format (trick films, farces, actualities, 'illustrated songs,' cheap vaudeville acts) ($ ext{p. } 18$).
Middle-Class Reformers: In the early , this non-narrative variety was attacked by reform groups (e.g., Russell Sage Survey) as 'artificial stimulus' creating 'unhealthy nervousness,' contrasting with Marinetti and Eisenstein who sought to harness this popular energy for radical purposes ($ ext{p. } 18$).
Narrativization (1907-1913): This period marks the 'true narrativization of the cinema,' culminating in feature films that radically revised the variety format. Cinema adopted legitimate theatre as its model, featuring 'famous players in famous plays' ($ ext{p. } 19$).
D.W. Griffith typifies this transformation, where cinematic signifiers became bound to storytelling and creating a self-enclosed 'diegetic universe.' The 'look at the camera' became taboo, and cinematic devices evolved from playful 'tricks' to elements of dramatic expression, delving into character psychology and fictional worlds ($ ext{p. } 19$).
Survival of Attractions: This shift wasn't a complete overthrow. The 'system of attraction' remained crucial to popular filmmaking. The variety format survived in movie palaces (newsreels, cartoons, sing-alongs, orchestras alongside features) ($ ext{p. } 19$).
Chase Film (1903-1906): Demonstrated an early synthesis of attractions and narrative. It provided a model for causality, linearity, and basic editing continuity (e.g., Biograph's 'Personal' (1904)). In these films, narrative progression (the chase) was punctuated by 'mini-spectacle pauses' as characters encountered obstacles (a fence, a slope), offering visual spectacle for the audience. Edison even offered a plagiarized version as a complete film or separate shots, allowing purchasers to buy individual attraction images ($ ext{p. } 19$).
Spectacle and Narrative Dialectic: Laura Mulvey showed this fuels classical cinema. Donald Crafton's study of slapstick comedy ('The pie and the chase') illustrated how slapstick balanced pure gag spectacle with narrative development. Traditional spectacle films, like 'Ben-Hur' (1924), explicitly highlighted moments of 'prime attractions' through timed schedules ($ ext{p. } 19$).
Hollywood advertising using commands like 'See!' for film features shows the enduring 'primal power of the attraction' beneath narrative regulation ($ ext{p. } 19$).
Conclusion: Early cinema's 'radical heterogeneity' and 'ambiguous heritage' are evident. Films like 'The Great Train Robbery' (1903) simultaneously showcase direct assault on the spectator (outlaw firing at camera) and linear narrative continuity ($ ext{p. } 20$).
Recent 'spectacle cinema' (e.g., Spielberg-Lucas-Coppola's 'cinema of effects') reaffirms roots in stimulus and carnival rides, although Gunning notes 'effects are tamed attractions' compared to the revolutionary potential Marinetti and Eisenstein envisioned for popular energy ($ ext{p. } 20$).
Each period in film history constructs its spectator anew. The 'earlier carnival of the cinema' and popular entertainment methods still provide an 'unexhausted resource' for avant-garde cinema, traceable from Méliès through Keaton, 'Un Chien andalou' (1928), and Jack Smith ($ ext{p. } 20$).