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Authors: Geoffrey Nowell-Smith
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lack of concern for developed stories, constituted a very important source material
and the earliest film-makers relied upon media such as the melodrama and pantomime
(emphasizing visual effects rather than dialogue), magic lanterns, comics, political
cartoons, newspapers, and illustrated song slides.
Magic lanterns, early versions of slide projectors often lit by kerosene lamps, proved a
particularly important influence upon films, for magic lantern practices permitted the
projection of 'moving pictures', which set precedents for the cinematic representation of
time and space. Magic lanterns employed by travelling exhibitors often had elaborate
lever and pulley mechanisms to produce movement within specially manufactured slides.
Long slides pulled slowly through the slide holder produced the equivalent of a cinematic
pan. Two slide holders mounted on the same lantern permitted the operator to produce a
dissolve by switching rapidly between slides. The use of two slides also permitted
'editing', as operators could cut from long shots to close-ups, exteriors to interiors, and
from characters to what they were seeing. Grandma's Reading Glasses, in fact, derives
from a magic lantern show. Magic lantern lectures given by travelling exhibitors such as
the Americans Burton Holmes and John Stoddard provided precedents for the train and
travelogue films, the lantern illustrations often intercutting exterior views of the train,
interior views of the traveller in the train, and views of scenery and of interesting
incidents.
In addition to mimicking the visual conventions of other media, film-makers derived
many of their films from stories already well known to the audience. Edison advertised its
Night before Christmas ( Porter, 1905) by saying the film 'closely follows the time-
honored Christmas legend by Clement Clarke Moore'. Both Biograph and Edison made
films of the hit song 'Everybody Works but Father'. Vitagraph based its Happy Hooligan
series on a cartoon tramp character whose popular comic strip ran in several New York
newspaper Sunday supplements. Many early films presented synoptic versions of fairly
complex narratives, their producers presumably depending upon their audiences'pre-
existing knowledge of the subject-matter rather than upon cinematic conventions for the
requisite narrative coherence. L'Épopée napoléonienne ('The Epic of Napoleon', 1903-4
Pathé) presents Napoleon's life through a series of tableaux, drawing upon well-known
historical incidents (the coronation, the burning of Moscow) and anecdotes ( Napoleon
standing guard for the sleeping sentry) but with no attempt at causal linear connection or
narrative development among its fifteen shots. In similar fashion, multi-shot films such as
Ten Nights in a Barroom ( Biograph, 1903) and Uncle Tom's Cabin (Vitagraph, 1903)
presented only the highlights of these familiar and oftperformed melodramas, with shot
connections provided not by editing strategies but by the audiences' knowledge of
intervening events. The latter film, however, appears to be one of the earliest to have
intertitles. These title cards, summarizing the action of the shot which followed, appeared
at the same time as the multi-shot film, around 1903-4, and seem to indicate a recognition
on the part of the producers of the necessity for internally rather than externally derived
narrative coherence.
EXHIBITION
Cinema initially existed not as a popular commercial medium but as a scientific and
educational novelty. The cinematic apparatus itself and its mere ability to reproduce
movement constituted the attraction, rather than any particular film. In many countries,
moving picture machines were first seen at world's fairs and scientific expositions: the
Edison Company had planned to début its Kinetoscope at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair
although it failed to assemble the machines in time, and moving picture machines were
featured in several areas of
and the earliest film-makers relied upon media such as the melodrama and pantomime
(emphasizing visual effects rather than dialogue), magic lanterns, comics, political
cartoons, newspapers, and illustrated song slides.
Magic lanterns, early versions of slide projectors often lit by kerosene lamps, proved a
particularly important influence upon films, for magic lantern practices permitted the
projection of 'moving pictures', which set precedents for the cinematic representation of
time and space. Magic lanterns employed by travelling exhibitors often had elaborate
lever and pulley mechanisms to produce movement within specially manufactured slides.
Long slides pulled slowly through the slide holder produced the equivalent of a cinematic
pan. Two slide holders mounted on the same lantern permitted the operator to produce a
dissolve by switching rapidly between slides. The use of two slides also permitted
'editing', as operators could cut from long shots to close-ups, exteriors to interiors, and
from characters to what they were seeing. Grandma's Reading Glasses, in fact, derives
from a magic lantern show. Magic lantern lectures given by travelling exhibitors such as
the Americans Burton Holmes and John Stoddard provided precedents for the train and
travelogue films, the lantern illustrations often intercutting exterior views of the train,
interior views of the traveller in the train, and views of scenery and of interesting
incidents.
In addition to mimicking the visual conventions of other media, film-makers derived
many of their films from stories already well known to the audience. Edison advertised its
Night before Christmas ( Porter, 1905) by saying the film 'closely follows the time-
honored Christmas legend by Clement Clarke Moore'. Both Biograph and Edison made
films of the hit song 'Everybody Works but Father'. Vitagraph based its Happy Hooligan
series on a cartoon tramp character whose popular comic strip ran in several New York
newspaper Sunday supplements. Many early films presented synoptic versions of fairly
complex narratives, their producers presumably depending upon their audiences'pre-
existing knowledge of the subject-matter rather than upon cinematic conventions for the
requisite narrative coherence. L'Épopée napoléonienne ('The Epic of Napoleon', 1903-4
Pathé) presents Napoleon's life through a series of tableaux, drawing upon well-known
historical incidents (the coronation, the burning of Moscow) and anecdotes ( Napoleon
standing guard for the sleeping sentry) but with no attempt at causal linear connection or
narrative development among its fifteen shots. In similar fashion, multi-shot films such as
Ten Nights in a Barroom ( Biograph, 1903) and Uncle Tom's Cabin (Vitagraph, 1903)
presented only the highlights of these familiar and oftperformed melodramas, with shot
connections provided not by editing strategies but by the audiences' knowledge of
intervening events. The latter film, however, appears to be one of the earliest to have
intertitles. These title cards, summarizing the action of the shot which followed, appeared
at the same time as the multi-shot film, around 1903-4, and seem to indicate a recognition
on the part of the producers of the necessity for internally rather than externally derived
narrative coherence.
EXHIBITION
Cinema initially existed not as a popular commercial medium but as a scientific and
educational novelty. The cinematic apparatus itself and its mere ability to reproduce
movement constituted the attraction, rather than any particular film. In many countries,
moving picture machines were first seen at world's fairs and scientific expositions: the
Edison Company had planned to début its Kinetoscope at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair
although it failed to assemble the machines in time, and moving picture machines were
featured in several areas of
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