Kino mashinasi
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Roundhay Garden Scene · 1888 · Louis Le Prince
Louis Le Prince filmed four people strolling in a Leeds garden. The best-known copy is just 52 frames.
Nobody agrees on its speed: 12 frames per second, or closer to 7?
Louis Le Prince · 16 September 1890
Le Prince boarded the Dijon–Paris train and was never seen again. The case is still unsolved.
Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory · 1895 · Louis Lumière
Workers stream out of the Lumière factory gates in Lyon — the first film shot with the Cinématographe.
Three different versions exist — the brothers filmed it more than once.
Latham (New York) and Skladanowsky (Berlin) · 1895
20 May 1895: Latham held a paid screening in New York. In November the Skladanowsky brothers showed their Bioscop in Berlin.
“The Lumières invented cinema” is a big oversimplification.
Grand Café, Paris · 28 December 1895
Paris, the Salon Indien of the Grand Café: 33 spectators, 1 franc each, ten short films.
0 / 33 spectators
Tear the ticket
28 December 1895 is cinema’s traditional birthday. Within days, more than 2,000 people a day were coming.
The Arrival of a Train · 1896 · Lumière
The Lumières’ most famous film gave birth to cinema’s most famous myth.
Flip the card
The film probably wasn't even in the 28 December programme.
Lumière operators · 1895–1905
Between 1895 and 1905, Lumière camera operators shot more than 1,400 films around the world.
A Trip to the Moon · 1902 · Georges Méliès
Magician Georges Méliès turned the camera into a box of tricks: the rocket lands right in the Moon's eye.
A hand-coloured print was restored and shown at Cannes in 2011.
The Great Train Robbery · 1903 · Edwin S. Porter
At the end of Edwin S. Porter's 14-scene film, a bandit fires his gun straight at the camera.
It wasn't the first western or the first story film — but it was hugely influential.
Four different “firsts”
It depends on what you mean by “first”.
Four doors, four different “firsts”. Open one.
Kid Auto Races at Venice · 1914 · Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin's Tramp first appeared in Kid Auto Races at Venice.
Chaplin keeps getting in the way of the newsreel camera — that is the whole joke.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari · 1920 · Robert Wiene
In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, light and shadow were painted straight onto the sets.
Lev Kuleshov’s experiment · 1920s
Same face, different next shot. The audience invents the emotion.
What is he looking at? Choose the next shot:
The original footage is lost, and some scholars question the results.
Battleship Potemkin · 1925 · Sergei Eisenstein
This sequence from Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin became the textbook on how editing creates tension.
A massacre on the steps themselves is not documented — though there was real violence in Odessa in June 1905.
The Wizard of Oz · 1939 · Victor Fleming
In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy opens a door — and the sepia world floods with Technicolor.
Bicycle Thieves · 1948 · Vittorio De Sica
Italian neorealism: real streets, non-professional actors. Bicycle Thieves became its emblem.
The lead, Lamberto Maggiorani, was a real factory worker.
Breathless · 1960 · Jean-Luc Godard
Godard's Breathless shook up film language with a handheld camera and abrupt jump cuts.
A jump cut is an abrupt skip within a shot. Godard turned a mistake into a style.
Jaws · 1975 · Steven Spielberg
Spielberg's Jaws had queues stretching around the block.
The mechanical shark kept breaking, so Spielberg mostly hid it — and the fear grew.
Star Wars · 1977 · George Lucas
For Star Wars, George Lucas set up his own effects house: Industrial Light & Magic.
Toy Story · 1995 · Pixar, John Lasseter
Toy Story: the first feature film made entirely with computer animation.
Tangerine · 2015 · Sean Baker
Sean Baker shot Tangerine entirely on an iPhone 5s.
Three iPhone 5s phones, an $8 app and an anamorphic lens adapter.
Roma · 2018 · Alfonso Cuarón
Netflix started streaming in 2007. In 2019 its film Roma won three Oscars.
You’ve seen 22 stops
Next section History of Movie Cameras → 1659 → 2013