| Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as
individual projects, as well as the field in general. The origin of the
name comes from the fact that photographic film (also called filmstock)
has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion
pictures. Many other terms exist — motion pictures, the silver screen,
photoplays, picture shows, flicks — and most commonly movies. Academics
and the English-speaking international community prefer to use film or "cinema",
due to the colloquial nature of these other terms.
Films are produced by recording actual people and objects with cameras,
or by creating them using animation techniques and/or special effects.
They comprise a series of individual frames, but when these images are
shown rapidly in succession, the illusion of motion is given to the viewer.
Flickering between frames is not seen due to an effect known as persistence
of vision — whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction
of a second after the source has been removed. Perhaps of more relevance
is what causes the perception of motion — a psychological effect
identified as beta movement.
Film is considered by many to be an important art form; films entertain,
educate, enlighten and inspire audiences. The visual elements of cinema
need no translation, giving the motion picture a universal power of communication.
Any film can become a worldwide attraction, especially with the addition
of dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue. Films are also artifacts
created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn,
affect them.
History of film
Main article: History of film
Mechanisms for producing artificially created, two-dimensional images
in motion were demonstrated as early as the 1860's, including the zoetrope
and the praxinoscope. These machines were outgrowths of simple optical
devices (such as magic lanterns), and would display sequences of still
pictures at sufficient speed for the images on the pictures to appear
to be moving. Naturally, the images needed to be carefully designed to
achieve the desired effect — and the underlying principle became
the basis for the development of animation.
With the development of celluloid film for still photography, it became
possible to directly capture objects in motion in real time using the
new medium. Early versions of the technology sometimes required the viewer
to look into a special device to see the pictures. By the 1880's, the
development of the motion picture camera allowed the individual component
images to be captured and stored on a single reel, and led quickly to
the development of a motion picture projector to shine light through the
processed and printed film and magnify these "moving picture shows"
onto a screen for an entire audience. These reels, so exhibited, came
to be known as "motion pictures".
Motion pictures were purely visual art up to the late 1920s, but these
innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. When
films began to tell stories, instead of just record brief events, exhibitors
sometimes provided a commentator to narrate the action, but this became
unnecessary with the development of printed intertitles containing the
actors' dialogue and other written, descriptive material as part of the
visual experience. Rather than leave the audience in silence, theater
owners would hire a pianist or organist or a full orchestra to play music
fitting the mood of the film at any given moment. By the early 1920s,
most films came with a prepared list of sheet music for this purposes,
with complete film scores being composed for major productions.
In the late 1920s, technology allowed filmmakers to attach to each film
a soundtrack of speech, music and sound effects synchronized with the
action on the screen. These sound films were initially distinguished by
calling them "talking pictures", or talkies.
The next major step in the development of cinema was the introduction
of color. While the addition of sound quickly eclipsed silent film and
theater musicians, color was adopted more gradually. The public was relatively
indifferent to color photography as opposed to black-and-white. But as
color processes improved and became as affordable as black-and-white film,
more and more movies were filmed in color after the end of WWII, as the
industry in America came to view color an essential to attracting audiences
in its competition with television, which remained a black-and-white medium
until the mid-60s. By the end of the 1960s, color had become the norm
for film makers, and by the 1980s, an expectation of the younger generations
by then comprising the majority of the audience for commercial films.
Only in rare exceptions is black-and-white film now used; the choice is
motivated by artistic reasons.
Origins of motion picture arts and sciences
Film as an art form grew out of a long tradition of literature, storytelling,
narrative drama, art, mythology, puppetry, shadow play, cave paintings
and perhaps even dreams. In addition, the technology of film, also emerged
from various developments and achievements in human history.
Film theory
Main article: Film theory
Film theory seeks to develop concise, systematic concepts that apply to
the study of film/cinema as art. Classical film theory provides a structural
framework to address classical issues of techniques, narrativity, diegesis,
cinematic codes, "the image", genre, subjectivity, and authorship.
More recent analysis has given rise to psychoanalytic film theory, structuralist
film theory, feminist film theory, and theories of documentary, new media,
third cinema, and new queer cinema, to name just a few.
History
The Italian futurist Ricciotto Canudo (1879-1923) is considered to be
the very first theoretician of cinema. He published his manifesto The
Birth of the Seventh Art in 1911. Another early attempt was The Photoplay
(1916) by the psychologist Hugo Münsterberg.
Classical film theory took shape during the era of silent film. It emerged
from the works of directors like Germaine Dulac, Louis Delluc, Jean Epstein,
Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov, Paul Rotha and film critics
like Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs and Siegfried Kracauer.
It was not an academic discipline.
In the 1960s film theory took up residence in academe, importing concepts
from established disciplines like psychoanalysis, literary studies and
linguistics.
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