Cinematograph

History

A device by this name was invented and patented as the "Cinématographe Léon Bouly" by French inventor Léon Bouly on February 12, 1892. Bouly coined the term "cinematograph," from the Greek for "writing in movement." Due to a lack of money, Bouly could not develop his ideas properly and maintain his patent fees, so the Lumière brothers were free to adopt the name. In 1895, they applied it to a device that was mostly their own invention.

The Lumière brothers made their first film, Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (Sortie de l'usine Lumière de Lyon), that same year. On 22 March 1895, in Paris, at the Society for the Development of the National Industry, in front of a small audience, one of whom was said to be Léon Gaumont, then director of the company Comptoir Géneral de la Photographie, the Lumières privately screened a single film, Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory. The first commercial, public screening of cinematographic films happened on 20 May 1895 at 156 Broadway, New York City, when the "Eidoloscope", invented by Woodville Latham and Eugene Lauste was presented. Nonetheless, this has often been incorrectly attributed to the first Lumière show on 28 December 1895 at Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris, which was organised by the Lumière brothers. This presentation featured ten short films, including a new version of Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory. Each of these early films was 17 meters long (approximately 56 feet), which, when hand cranked through a projector, ran approximately 50 seconds.

Invention

Louis Lumière and his brother Auguste worked together to create a motion-picture camera superior to Thomas Edison's kinetograph, which did not have a projector. The Lumières endeavored to correct the flaws they perceived in the kinetograph and the kinetoscope, to develop a machine with both sharper images and better illumination. The Cinématographe weighed only 16 lb, which allowed for ease of transportation and placement. As well, the Cinématographe was manually operated by a hand-crank, as opposed to Edison's electrically powered camera, which was not readily portable. Furthermore, while only one person at a time could use Edison's kinetoscope for viewing through an eyepiece-- an early model of a viewfinder. The Cinématographe could project an image onto a screen so a large audience of people could view images simultaneously.

The Cinématographe produced a sharper projected image than had been seen before due to its design, in which a kind of fork held frames behind the lens in place using the perforations in the sides of the film strip.

In 1897, the Lumières further added to their invention by using a glass flask of water as the condenser to concentrate the light onto the film frame and to absorb heat. The flask also acted as a safety feature, as the light would no longer focus on the flammable film if the glass were to break due to overheating or accident.

Popularity

After the success of the Lumières's initial public screening in 1895, the Cinématographe became a popular attraction for people all over the world. The Lumière brothers took their machine to China and India and it was enjoyed by people of all classes and social standings. The Cinématographe was used to show films in nickelodeons, where even the poorest classes could pay the entry fee. It was exhibited at fairs and used as entertainment in vaudeville houses in both Europe and the United States. While vaudeville is typically associated with the working and middle classes, the machine also found its way into more sophisticated venues, where it appealed to the artistic tastes of high society.

Notes

Explanatory notes

References

Ang, Tom. 2019. Photography: History, Art, Technique, 2005–2019.

References

1. Abel, Richard. Encyclopedia of Early Cinema. 1st ed. London: Routledge, 2004.
2. Cinéma des premiers temps: nouvelles contributions françaises par Michel Marié, Thierry Lefebvre, in collection Théorème (1996)
3. (27 February 2021). "In the beginning: cinema's murky origin story".
4. Fielding, Raymond. (1979). "A technological history of motion pictures and television: an anthology from the pages of the Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers". University of California Press.
5. Gomery, Professor Douglas, and Clara Pafort-Overduin. Movie History: A Survey. Taylor & Francis, 2011.
6. Cinematograph, Louis Lumière. "1936 the Lumière Cinematograph." SMPTE Journal 105, no. 10 (October 1, 1996): 608–611.