Theatre and Origin of Cinema
Theatre
The
Origins of Drama
Twenty-five
hundred years ago, two thousand years before Shakespeare, Western theatre was
born in Athens, Greece. Between 600 and 200 BC, the ancient Athenians created a
theatre culture whose form, technique and terminology have lasted two
millennia, and they created plays that are still considered among the greatest
works of world drama. Their achievement is truly remarkable when one considers
that there have been only two other periods in the history of theatre that
could be said to approach the greatness of ancient Athens - Elizabethan England
and, perhaps the Twentieth Century. The greatest playwright of Elizabethan
England was Shakespeare, but Athens produced at least five equally great
playwrights. The Twentieth Century produced thousands of fine plays and films,
but their form and often their content are based on the innovations of the
ancient Athenians.
The
Cult of Dionysus
The theatre
of Ancient Greece evolved from religious rites which date back to at least 1200
BC. At that time, Greece was peopled by tribes that we in our arrogance might
label 'primitive'. In northern Greece, in an area called Thrace, a cult arose
that worshipped Dionysus, the god of fertility and procreation. This Cult of
Dionysus, which probably originated in Asia Minor, practised ritual
celebrations which may have included alcoholic intoxication, orgies, human and
animal sacrifices, and perhaps even hysterical rampages by women called
maenads.
The cult's
most controversial practice involved was the uninhibited dancing and emotional
displays that created an altered mental state. This altered state was known as
'ecstasis', from which the word ecstasy is derived. Dionysiac, hysteria and
'catharsis' also derive from Greek words for emotional release or purification.
Ecstasy was an important religious concept to the Greeks, who would come to see
theatre as a way of releasing powerful emotions through its ritual power.
Though it met with resistance, the cult spread south through the tribes of
Greece over the ensuing six centuries. During this time, the rites of Dionysus
became mainstream and more formalised and symbolic. The death of a tragic hero
was offered up to god and man rather than the sacrifice of say, a goat. By 600
BC these ceremonies were practised in spring throughout much of Greece.
The
Dithyramb
An essential
part of the rites of Dionysus was the dithyramb. The word means 'choric hymn'.
This chant or hymn was probably introduced into Greece early accompanied by
mimic gestures and, probably, music. It began as a part of a purely religious
ceremony, like a hymn in the middle of a mass describing the adventures of
Dionysus. In its earliest form it was lead off by the leader of a band of
revellers, a group of dancers, probably dressed as satyrs dancing around an
altar. It was probably performed by a chorus of about fifty men dressed as
satyrs -- mythological half-human, half- goat servants of Dionysus. They may
have played drums, lyres and flutes, and chanted as they danced around an
effigy of Dionysus. Some accounts say they also wore phallus-like headgear. It
was given a regular form and raised to the rank of artistic poetry in about 600
BC. Introduced into Athens shortly before 500 BC, dithyramb was soon recognised
as one of the competitive subjects at the various Athenian festivals. For more
than a generation after its introduction the dithyramb attracted the most
famous poets of the day. By this time, however, it had ceased to concern itself
exclusively with the adventures of Dionysus and begun to choose its subjects
from all periods of Greek mythology. In this way, over time the dithyramb
evolved into stories in 'play' form: drama.
THE
GOLDEN AGE OF GREEK THEATRE
By 600 BC
Greece was divided into city-states, separate nations centred in major cities
and regions. The most prominent city-state was Athens, where at least 150,000
people lived. It was here that the Rites of Dionysus evolved into what we know
today as theatre. Since Athens was located in a region called Attica. Greek and
Athenian theatre are sometimes referred to as Attic Theatre.
Stages
and Styles of Presentation
According to
tradition, the first tragedian, Thespis, performed his plays on wagons with
which he travelled, and seats were set up for performances in the agora or
market place of Athens. By the end of the sixth century BC, however, a
permanent theatron of ‘watching place’, was set up in the precinct of
Dionysuson the south slope of the Athenian Acropolis. Since at first any
construction above ground was made of wood, and since the theatre was later
rebuilt many times, the surviving remains of this earliest Theatre of Dionysus
are extremely scanty. It has therefore to be reconstructed on the analogy of
other Greek theatres and on the evidence of the plays performed there. The only
features which necessarily existed in the early fifth century are wooden seats
for spectators on the hillside, and a level earth-floored orchestra, or
‘dancing area’ in the centre. The orchestra is usually believed to have been
circular, like a threshing floor. The orchestra at Epidaurus, for example, has
a diameter of just over 20 metres. If the spot chosen necessitated another
shape, it could be rectangular like that at Thoricus.
Most of the
surviving plays also make use of a building, the skene or scene building. This
was used as a changing-room for actors and as a sounding board, but also served
to represent the palace or house in front of which most plays are set. At
first, it must have been a temporary building re-erected each year (skene means
merely ‘tent’ or ‘hut’). The number of doors in its facade is disputed; most
tragedies require only one, but it most likely that there were in fact three.
Actors and chorus could enter by paths, called parodoi or eisodoi, to the right
and left of the skene. Chiefly they made these entrances on horse-drawn
chariots. The roof of the building could be used as an acting area, for
watchmen, gods and others. There is some oblique suggestion in two texts of the
period that permanent screens with architectural images were used, not ‘sets’
for specific plays, but permanent fixtures. It is conceivable, too, that there
was some rather underground passage, allowing ghosts to appear from below.
There have
been many disputes as to the existence of a stage (logeion) in front of the
skene, raising the actors above the orchestra where the Chorus performed. The
evidence is sparse, but is probable that this stage existed, although it will
not have been so high as to prevent easy interaction between actors and Chorus.
Other features of the orchestra were a central altar several images of gods,
which could be noticed in the plays, when required.
European Medieval Theatre
Early Medieval Theatre
The
Early Middle age Churches started staging dramatized versions of particular
biblical events on specific days of the year. This was done with a view of
explaining a new religion to a largely illiterate population. Symbolic objects
and actions (vestments, altars, censers, and pantomime) performed by the
priests recalled the events which Christian ritual celebrates. These were
extensive set of visual signs that could be used to communicate with a largely
illiterate audience. During the early stages around 925 c.a., the performances
developed into liturgical dramas, which were sung by two groups and did not
involve any actors; until sometime between 965 and 975 when the Bishop of
Winchester composed the Regularis
Concordia (Monastic Agreement), a complete playlet with directions for
performance.
The Western Roman Empire seat shifted to
Constantinople and the Eastern were known as Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine
theatre has records of mime, pantomime, scenes or recitations from tragedies
and comedies, dances and other entertainments. The importance of Byzantine
theatre comes from the compilation of a massive encyclopedia called the Suda.
The Justinian finally shut down the theatres around 6th century. The
Constantinople had two theatres until 5th century. According to the
early beliefs of the church followers of anything that didn’t to God was
Satanic, all theatres were shut down, literatures of Greek and Roman were
burnt, Platonic Academy was closed and Olympic game were banned. The theatre was viewed as diabolic due to its
continued popularity in Rome and the church characterized the stage as an
instrument to Devil’s evil plot to corrupt men’s souls and acting was
considered sinful as they mocked God’s creation.
Hrosvitha, an aristocratic canoness and historian,
wrote six plays modelled on Terence’s comedies using religious subjects in 10th
century. To pre-empt criticism from Church, she stated that her collection was
to save the church from guilt when reading classical literature. The six plays
were the first known plays composed by a woman and the first identifiable
Western dramatic works for post-Classical era. Hrosvitha was followed by
Hildegard of Bingen, a Benedictine abbess who wrote a musical Ordo Virtutum in
1155.
High and Late Medieval Theatre
The
liturgical dramas spread from Russia to Scandinavia to Italy by 11th
Century. Numerous liturgical dramas have survived from the period, though the
churches have only performed one or two a year. The Feast of Fools was important in the development of comedy. The
plays were staged with the occasion and a certain amount of burlesque and comedy
made to enter the liturgical drama, as part of ridiculing the higher superior
clergy and routine of church life.
The usage of the vernacular in the plays made the
reach to a wider range of audience, which started in the late 12th
century. During the high middle ages, the trade guilds started to perform plays
often relating to a biblical story referenced to their profession. A number of
religious plays were performed in every European country during the high and
late medieval ages. Many of them were contained comedy, devils, villains and
clowns. Many of the actors were drawn from local population. Plays were staged
on pageant wagon stages, which was an unidentified space, allowed for abrupt
changes in the location.
Morality plays which developed as a different distinct
dramatic form during the 1400s and flourished until 1550, puts forth many a
plays relating to the moral values of a person. Another form of drama that was
written was secular plays, which contained satirical scenes and folk material
such as fairies and other supernatural occurrences. Farces also grew in
popularity in the 13th century. Many of the plays came from France
and Germany and were similar in tone and form.
A significant forerunner of development of Elizabethan
drama was the Chamber of Rhetoric in the Low country. At the end of the late
Middle Ages, professional actors began to appear in England and around Europe.
Contributions to Modern Theatre
Many
components of theatre that developed during the Middle Ages continue to be
incorporated in productions around the world to this day, such as use of the
vernacular, spectacle, stage direction and the use of farce. Performances that
were spoken in the vernacular provided opportunities for larger audiences, who
included members of lower socio-economic status, who would have otherwise been
excluded from understanding the performances. Medieval theatre differed from
the classical theatre for it emphasized spectacle. In addition, it presented
various actions on stage in time and space and presented a combination of the
sublime with detailed realism.
Asian Theatre
Chinese Theatre
Chinese opera is a popular form
of drama and musical theatre in China which is a composite performance art that
is amalgamation of various art forms that existed in ancient China, and evolved
gradually over more than a thousand years, reaching its mature form in the 13th
century during the Song Dynasty. Early forms of Chinese drama are simple, but
over time they incorporated various art forms, such as music, song and dance,
martial arts, acrobatics, as well as literary art forms to become Chinese
opera.
An early
form of Chinese drama is the Canjun Opera which originated from the Later Zhao
Dynasty (319-351). In its early form it was a simple comic drama involving only
two performers, where a corrupt officer, Canjun or the adjutant, was ridiculed
by a jester named Grey Hawk. The characters in Canjun Opera are thought to be
the forerunners of the fixed role categories of later Chinese opera,
particularly of its comic chou characters. Various song and dance dramas
developed during the ages.
During the
Northern Qi Dynasty, a masked dance called the Big Face was created in honour
of Gao Changgong who went into battle wearing a mask. Another was called Botou,
a masked dance drama from the Western Regions that tells the story of a
grieving son who sought a tiger that killed his father. In The Dancing Singing
Woman, which relates the story of a wife battered by her drunken husband, the
song and dance drama was initially performed by a man dressed as a woman. The
stories told in of these song-and-dance dramas are simple, but they are thought
to be the earliest pieces of musical theatre in China, and the precursors to
the more sophisticated later forms of Chinese opera. These forms of early drama
were popular in the Tang Dynasty where they further developed. For example, by
the end of the Tang Dynasty the Canjun Opera had evolved into a performance
with more complex plot and dramatic twists, and it involved at least four
performers. The early form of Chinese theatre became more organized in the Tang
Dynasty with Emperor Xuanzong (712–755), who founded the "Pear
Garden", the first academy of music to train musicians, dancers and
actors. The performers formed what may be considered the first known opera
troupe in China, and mostly performed for the emperors' personal pleasure.
Present
In the 21st
century, Chinese opera is seldom publicly staged except in formal Chinese opera
houses. It is also presented during the lunar seventh month Chinese Ghost
Festival in Asia as a form of entertainment to the spirits and audience. More
than thirty famous forms of Chinese opera continue to be performed today came
from Kunqu, including Journey of the West, Romance of Three Kingdom, the Peony
Pavilion, and the Peach Blossom Fan. These masks were based on the ancient face
painting tradition where warriors decorated themselves to scare the enemy.
In 2001,
Kunqu was recognized as Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity
by United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO).
Indian Theatre
The earliest form of the theatre of India was the
Sanskrit theatre. It emerged sometime between the 2nd century BC and the 1st
century AD and flourished between the 1st century AD and the 10th, which was a
period of relative peace in the history of India during which hundreds of plays
were written. In an attempt to re-assert indigenous values and ideas, village
theatre was encouraged across the subcontinent, developing in a large number of
regional languages from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Modern Indian theatre
developed during the period of colonial rule under the British Empire, from the
mid-19th century until the mid-20th.
Sanskrit Theatre
The
earliest-surviving fragments of Sanskrit drama date from the 1st century AD.
The Mahabhasya by Patanjali contains the earliest reference to what may have
been the seeds of Sanskrit drama. This treatise on grammar from 140 BC provides
a feasible date for the beginnings of theatre in India. The major source of
evidence for Sanskrit theatre is A Treatise on Theatre (Natyasastra), a
compendium whose date of composition is uncertain (estimates range from 200 BC
to 200 AD) and whose authorship is attributed to Bharata Muni. The Treatise is
the most complete work of dramaturgy in the ancient world. It addresses acting,
dance, music, dramatic construction, architecture, costuming, make-up, props,
the organisation of companies, the audience, competitions, and offers a
mythological account of the origin of theatre.[8] In doing so, it provides
indications about the nature of actual theatrical practices. Sanskrit theatre
was performed on sacred ground by priests who had been trained in the necessary
skills (dance, music, and recitation) in a [hereditary process]. Its aim was
both to educate and to entertain.
Theatre in India under British Rule
Under British
colonial rule, modern Indian theatre began when a theatre was started in
Belgachia. Rabindranath Tagore was a pioneering modern playwright who wrote
plays noted for their exploration and questioning of nationalism, identity,
spiritualism and material greed. His plays are written in Bengali and include
Chitra (Chitrangada, 1892), The King of the Dark Chamber (Raja, 1910), The Post
Office (Dakghar, 1913), and Red Oleander (Raktakarabi, 1924).
Kalyanam Raghuramaiah, a recipient of the Sangeet
Natak Akademi Award, and the Padmashri, was known for the roles of Krishna or
Dushyantha, Bhavanisankar, Narada etc. in Telugu theatre. He performed those
roles for about 60 years. He indulged in elaborate raga alapana, based on
different ragas while rendering padyams. One of the finest method actors, he
had the ability to sing padyams and songs through whistle, by putting his
finger in mouth and producing the whistle or flute sound (meaning Eela in
Telugu). He has acted in various dramas and gave more than 20,000 stage
performances. He was called the "Nightingale of the Stage" by
Rabindranath Tagore.
Indian Theatre after Independence
Mrityunjay
Prabhakar is one of the major young Hindi theatre director and playwright who
emerged on Indian Theatre Scene in the last decade of the 20th century and
established himself as a significant theatre activist in first decade of the
21st century. He started his theatre career from Patna during his graduation
days. He has worked with several theatre groups like Abhiyan, Prerna, Mach Art
group and Prangan in Patna.
Saurabh Srivastava is another versatile theatre worker
who has been active in different parts of country since 1980, acting and
directing in plays in Allahabad, Varanasi, Lucknow, Kanpur, Delhi, Vadodara,
Hyderabad, Jodhpur and Jaipur.[18] Working with Campus Theatre, Creative Arts,
Apurva Society etc., Saurabh Srivastava has directed more than two dozen Hindi
plays and presented hundreds of shows in different cities. Literary
interpretation, mature insight, penetrating vision and an ability to
successfully communicate the essence to the audience are some of the strengths
of Saurabh's style and vision of theatrical presentation. He is currently
active in Jaipur.
Forms of Indian Theatre
Kutiyattom
Kutiyattam
is the only surviving specimen of the ancient Sanskrit theatre, thought to have
originated around the beginning of the Common Era, and is officially recognised
by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Koodiyattam
and chakyar koothu were among the dramatized dance worship services in temples
of ancient India, particularly Kerala. Both koodiyattam and chakyar koothu find
several mentions in ancient sangam literature of south and also in the
epigraphs belonging to subsequent Pallava, Chera, Chola periods.
Traditionally, the main musical instruments used in
Koodiyattam are mizhavu, kuzhitalam, etakka, kurumkuzhal, and sankhu. Mizhavu,
the most prominent of these, is a percussion instrument that is played by a
person of the Ambalavas Nambiar caste, accompanied by Nangyaramma playing the
kuzhithalam (a type of cymbal).
Traditionally, Koodiyattam has been performed by
Chakyars (a subcaste of Kerala Hindus) and by Nangyaramma (women of the
Ambalavasi Nambiar caste). The name Koodiyattam, meaning playing or performing
together, is thought to refer to the presence or more actors on stage who act
in consonance with the beats of the mizhavu drummers. Koodiyattam performances
are lengthy and elaborate affairs, ranging from 12 to 150 hours spread across
several nights. A complete Koodiyattam performance consists of three parts. The
first of these is the purappadu where an actor performs a verse along with the
nritta aspect of dance. Following this is the nirvahanam where the actor, using
abhinaya, brings to the audience the mood of the main character of the play.
The nirvahanam, a retrospective, takes the audience up to the point where the
actual play begins. The final part of the performance is koodiyattam which is
the play itself. While the first two parts are solo acts, Koodiyattam can have
as many characters as are required to perform on the stage.
Kadhakali
Kathakali, one of the major
forms of classical Indian dance is another "story play" genre of art that
is distinguished by its elaborately colourful make-up, costumes and face masks
wearing actor-dancers, who have traditionally been all males. Kathakali was primarily
developed as a Hindu performance art in Kerala. The traditional themes of the
Kathakali are folk mythologies, religious legends and spiritual ideas from the
Hindu epics and the Puranas. The vocal performance has traditionally been
Sanskritised Malayalam.
The play is in the form of verses that are
metered and lyrical, sung by vocalists whose voice has been trained to various
melodies (raga), music and synchronized with the dance-acting on the stage.[53]
The vocalists not only deliver the lines, but help set the context and express
the inner state of the character by modulating their voice. For example, anger
is expressed by the use of sharp high voice and pleading is expressed by the
use of a tired tone for the verse. Music is central to a Kathakali performance.
It sets the mood and triggers emotions resonant with the nature of the scene.
It also the beat speed with which the actors play their parts. Some major
musical patterns, according to Clifford and Betty, that go with the moods and
content of the scene are: Cempata (most common and default that applies to a
range of moods, in battles and fights between good and evil, also to conclude a
scene); Campa music (depict tension, dispute, disagreement between lovers or
competing ideas); Pancari (for odious, preparatory such as sharpening a sword);
Triputa (thought provoking, scenes involving sages and teachers); Atanta (scenes
involving kings or divine beings); Muri Atanta musical style (for comic, light
hearted, or fast moving scenes involving heroic or anger-driven activity). Many
musical instruments are used in Kathakali. Three major drums found are Maddalam
(barrel shaped), Centa (cylindrical drum played with curved sticks) and Itaykka
(Idakka, hourglass shaped drum with muted and melodious notes played when
female characters perform).
A tradition Kathakali play typically consists
of two interconnected parts, the third-person Shlokas and first-person Padams.
The Shlokas are in Sanskrit and describe the action in the scene, while Padams
are dialogues in Malayalam (Sanskritized) for the actors to interpret and play.
A Padam consists of three parts: a Pallavi (refrain), Anupallavi (subrefrain)
and Caranam (foot), all of which are set to one of the ancient Ragas (musical
mode), based on the mood and context as outlined in ancient Sanskrit texts such
as the Natya Shastra. In historic practice of a play performance, each Padam was
enacted twice by the actor while the vocalists sang the lines repeatedly as the
actor-dancer played his role out. The traditional plays were long, many written
to be performed all night, some such as those based on the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata written to be performed for many sequential nights. However, others
such as the Prahlada Caritam were composed so that they can be performed within
four hours. Modern productions have extracted parts of these legendary plays,
to be typically performed within 3 to 4 hours.
Kathakali has lineages or distinctive styles of
play interpretation and dance performance called Sampradayam. These developed
in part because of the Gurukul system of its transmission from one generation
to the next. By the 19th-century, many such styles were in vogue in Malayalam
speaking communities of south India, of which two major styles have
crystallized and survived into the modern age.
The Kidangoor style is one developed in
Travancore, and it is strongly influenced by Kutiyattam, while also drawing
elements of Ramanattam and Kalladikkotan. The Kalluvayi style is second of the
two, which developed in Palakkad (Olappamanna Mana) in central Kerala, and is a
synthesis of the older Kaplingadan and Kalladikkotan performance arts. It is
traditionally attributed to Unniri Panikkar, in a Brahmin household (1850), and
became the dominant style established in Kerala Kalamandalam – a school of
performance arts.
Cinema
Cinema is the repurposing of life. We, the audience,
choose to recognize what is inside the frame and what is not. Martin Scorsese
knew this when he broke down film to its base level: “Cinema is a matter of
what’s in the frame and what’s not.” Scorsese, himself, is a major practitioner
of his own theory. Always one to give a sly wink and nod to the “oldies,” he
constantly fills his frame with the aesthetic tropes of the earliest days of
film. Taking this basic idea, the first ten years of cinema set the foundation
for the century of innovation that has followed, where two future allies in
battle would first set a course of competition for supremacy in the creation of
the most awe-inspiring of mediums: the movies. While one can trace the “origins
of cinema” all the way back to Euclid, the essential genesis of it comes from a
Belgian physicist and an Austrian geometry professor. Joseph Plateau and Simon
von Stampfer developed the first true illusionary device of images called the
phenakistoscope in 1832. Following on the heels of this creation in 1833,
William George Horner came up with a more sophisticated invention called the
zoetrope. It took the pinwheel idea of the phenenakistoscope and made it more
visually pleasing for the viewer. By 1878, a noted photographer named Eadweard
Muybridge was asked by former California governor Leland Stanford to invent a
system that would help study the gaits of horses more effectively. Muybridge
put twelve cameras side-by-side that each shot an exposure of one-thousandth of
a second, one-half-second each. This became the first photograph-based movement
of images. Once George Eastman developed his Kodak film stock in 1888, it was
all an already-established inventor needed to develop his next great invention.
Thomas Alva Edison will normally be credited with the
creation of the first “film” device. He and his assistant W.K.L. Dickson, with
a lot of research of others work, began to devise a machine that would take
Eastman’s Kodak film stock and run it through a camera they had put together.
This kinetograph camera was apart of a larger machine with spinning gears that
would slowly run the film stock through it. Edison would name this machine a
“kinetoscope” and it would have its first public test run in New York City on
April 14, 1894. Soon, hundreds of kinetoscopes were showing up in parlors
across the country to great acclaim. Viewers could peer through a peep hole in
the machine and see the twenty-second short films Edison and his company
produced. The race for cinematic supremacy was on. Europe had always been on
top of the most fashionable trends and styles and, certainly France, Paris more
specifically, was an epicenter of this. Always seen as the art capital of the
world, Paris and its surrounding cities produced and displayed the finest of
artistic works. As Edison’s kinetoscope was becoming more and more ubiquitous,
two brothers named Louis and Auguste Lumiere from Lyon, France, had the grand
idea of creating something more portable than its predecessor, but, also, more
functional. They would be able to shoot their own films on this particular
device using the Eastman/Edison stock and have the positive copies printed on
the same machine. Once it was placed in front of a magic lantern, it, would
finally act as a projector as well. Once they had created twenty-five or so
short films, similar to the ones Edison made, they took what they dubbed the
“cinematographe” to the Grand Cafe in Paris and effectively became responsible
for the first movie-going experience.
Now, cinema had officially gone international. Movie
houses and nickelodeons would begin popping up in the next ten years. By the
end of the 19th century, films were still primitive. Unlike theatrical works,
there was no functioning narrative or plot line to the shorts that Edison and
the Lumieres had created. They were certainly new and fun to look at for the
audiences, but a cadre of individuals began testing the boundaries of how far
they could go with the stories they wanted to tell. Famed Parisian magician
George Melies, already a wizard at creating illusions, got his hands on a
camera and began tinkering not only with what he could do with it, but, also,
the mise-en-scene that it was filming. He used many various methods of special
effects to show fantastical stories being brought to life. His use of the
dissolve edit and superimposition was completely unheard of at the time.
Melies’s films would get progressively more complex with each year and in 1902,
he directed what became one of the longest pieces seen up to that point, A Trip
to the Moon. This film is the measuring stick for all ones that were to come,
with its futuristic narrative of a group of French scientists and their
exploration of space and the moon. The aforementioned technical tricks Melies
used are on full display, here. For example, the Moon creatures that antagonize
the scientists are easily disposed of by simply hitting them. They turn into
puffs of smoke after being whacked with either umbrellas or appendages. He
would cut the film between the two bits of action to create this particular
illusion. A Trip to the Moon garnered plenty of attention, especially from an
American working for Edison’s company at the time. Edwin S. Porter, a former
projectionist, did early photography work for Edison and, in the process,
created over two hundred short films. After seeing A Trip to the Moon, he felt
that he could properly tell his own short stories. In 1903, he made two films, ‘Life
of an American Fireman’ and ‘The Great Train Robbery’, were evolutionary leaps
in editing. Instead of using trickery like Melies, Porter would use parallel
editing with two pieces of information in two different locales that would
equal a converging story. Technical “intercutting” back and forth between these
locations wouldn’t be used until a few years later, but what Porter
accomplished with both films made it a lot easier for future filmmakers. The
Great Train Robbery, itself, was ahead of its time just in the way of action
and violence. In fact, Porter used, seemingly as an afterthought, a, now,
iconic shot at the very end of the film of one of the robbers staring at the
camera for a few seconds, then turning a gun on it and shooting. Audiences were
reportedly startled by this. Porter was able to create one of the first truly
Brechtian, fourth-wall-breaking moments in cinema.
This wholly new medium was picking up steam by the
beginning of the 20th century and, soon, had become a cultural revolution,
still evolving to this day. The 2011 film, Hugo, which was an adaptation of
Brian Selznick’s ‘The Invention of Hugo Cabret’, was about Melies’s life after
his film career ended. The film, which was shot in 3-D, pays wonderful homage
to moments most of us can only dream about getting to see: the first time ‘Arrival
of a Train at La Ciotat’ was played to audiences and the shock and awe that
occurred, Melies’s gorgeous glass studio where he created many of his most
notable works, and even Melies’s the gala retrospective he was given by film
scholars in the late-1920s. It’s a cliche, but it’s easily one of the best love
letters to the cinema. In a more surreptitious moment, at the end of his 1990
film Goodfellas, he quickly added in a shot of the psychotic Tommy, played by
Joe Pesci, staring at the camera and shooting his gun at it, right before he
cuts to Ray Liotta’s Henry walking back in the house and slamming the door. The
moment is perfect, as Scorsese reinforces the idea that these men were cowboys.
They succeeded as cowboys and they certainly failed like them, too. Just two
moments like these prove how pivotal, no matter how simplistic, the first ten
years of cinema were.
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