The Seventh Art and La Belle Epoque

La Belle Epoque, as people would later call the period leading up to World War I, was a time of discovery. People had been playing with the idea of moving pictures since the 1820s, but it was not until the 1880s that discoveries really began to take place that created the ideal situation for film. There was fierce competition to create a viable way to show moving pictures, causing people from England, America, France, and many other places to compete against and build off each other. Thomas Edison in America was particularly infamous for the amount of clout he used in trying to monopolize the industry before it had even begun. However it was the Lumiere brothers in France that would ultimately succeed in creating the first projected motion picture that could be sold to a wide audience. 

The original Cinematographe 

At the heart of the history of film is the idea of, bricolage. The closest English equivalent would be a bringing together of bits and pieces. The cinematographe that the Lumiere brothers "invented" was merely the reflection of a longer chain of changes to previous creations. Newton's statement that he "stood on the shoulders of giants" greatly reflects this period of history. Like many other inventions of the time, the end result reflected the work of hundreds of hands. 

Initially film focused on presenting reality. The first films were documentaries, but they also presented their own narrative through framing and shot. However La Belle Epoque generation's desire for entertainment quickly manifested itself in film through one of the greatest early filmmakers, Meliese. He is best known for Le voyage dans la lune, which was the first fantasy, science fiction, and comprehensive story told through film. Many others would come afterwards but there is still something captivating in watching these early films. This semester I have been studying French and Italian cinema and have come to have a greater appreciation for early film and its contributions to society. Now looking at film and its impact specifically on the gilded era has helped me understand better how film came about and why the two most important filmmakers of the time, Lumiere and Meliese, focused on documentation and Entertainment. Documentation was linked both to the greater desires of the world of science in its continued quest to understand the world around it - the first "moving pictures" was actually of a horse in motion as well as people's desire to improve the world and show the real world to others. The entertainment industry was a growing phenomenon as modern inventions helped make life easier and gave people more time to do what they wanted. Meleise captures these desires for the fantastic through pyrotechnics, special effects, strange transitions, and story driven narratives. 

Today film is a staple of entertainment consumption for people world wide, but from its humble beginnings people have sought to use the medium to express society's needs and desires by transporting us to other worlds. These other worlds may be just down the street or in another universe, but in each in their own way reflect society's problems, desires, and fantasies.