The Entertainer’s Footprints – A Brief History Of Films

Let us begin from the beginning. Movie technology has its roots in the early 1830s when Joseph Plateau of Belgium and Simon Stampfer of Austria developed a device called ‘phenakistoscope.’ It was considered a precursor of modern motion pictures. In 1895 Louis Lumiere’s ‘Cinematographe’ was patented which was a combination of a camera and a projector.

Thomas Edison invented moving pictures which were silent. Audiences enjoyed movies without audio or music for a long time unless Sam Warner of Warner Brothers, in the quest of trying to produce more successful movies, aspired to give audio a shot. Sam used the phonograph to record voices and made the movies where the actors talked to each other. The new sound-based movies were called ‘Vitaphone’ movies, denoting “the sound of life.’’ The first Vitaphone movie, named ‘Don Juan’ was a romantic adventure. ‘The Jazz Singer’ was another classic example of a primitive talkie. Even when sound movies got better, one iconic actor still chose to speak to the world through his eyes, face and body. Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp remained silent forever.

The cinema has evolved over the years. Kinemacolor system was patented in 1906 followed by Technicolor, introduced in 1932. To make viewing more dramatic Cinerama was invented in 1952, followed by Cinemascope in 1953 and Omnimax in 1970. Even in the audio system, the once made silent movies now boast of Dolby Atmos-the newest cinema sound technology. It allows the film-makers to precisely place and move sound anywhere in the theatre.“Gravity”-the current blockbuster is an ideal example of this technology. From 3D to virtual reality to depth sensors, movie making is undergoing a revolution. Technology is offering exciting ways to consume information and entertainment.

The journey is incomplete without the mention of a few key films. Charles Tait’s ‘The Story of the Kelly Gang’ (1906) was the world’s first full-length movie. World’s first colour moving pictures dating from 1902 have been found by the National Media Museum in Bradford after lying abandoned in an old tin for 110 years. These films were made by pioneer Edward Raymond Turner who patented his colour process on 22^nd March 1899. D.W. Griffith’s “Pippa Passes” was the first film whose film review published in the New York Times in 1909.  Raja Harishchandra, produced and directed by Dadasaheb Phalke, was the first full-length feature film in India. Men would play female characters then as it was considered inappropriate for women to work in movies. Lanka Dahan in 1917 was India’s first major box office hit where people would fight for tickets at long queues in Majestic cinema, Bombay and toss coins at the ticket counter because the film was mostly houseful. The road of movie hits and flops began with Lanka Dahan and paved its way to the current grosser “Sultan” starring Salman Khan and is a proud member of 300crore exclusive club.

India produces the largest number of films worldwide; over 1,700 films a year in 32 languages but its record of film archiving and preservation is abysmal. Of the 1,700 silent films made in the country, we only have five or six complete films. We lost a solid 80% of our films by 1950, and there is absolutely no record of India’s first talkie, Alam Ara. These statistics are unnerving. The Film Heritage Foundation aims to create an indigenous resource of film archivists and restorers that will work towards film preservation.  They have put an initial framework in place by preserving not the oldest movies but the most talked about movies of renowned directors like Raj Kapoor and Bimal Roy. Cinema is a rich cultural heritage, we live in films unless we know from where we come we will never know where to go. Cinema has been beautifully summarized by Martin Scorsese, “Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.’’

References:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-commercial-movie-screened

http://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/do-a-course-in-film-restoration/article6365171.ece

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/04/19/worlds-first-colour-film-unveiled/

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-19423951