Katerina Gnafaki3703347New Media ArchaeologyBlock: 32011-2012Imar de Vries New Media & Digital CultureUniversiteit Utrecht

ContentsIntroduction................................................................................................................................................ 3

Pre-cinema History................................................................................................................................. 5

Panoramas...............................................................................................................................................5

Vaudeville................................................................................................................................................ 8

The evolution of early cinematic techniques........................................................................12

Cinema of Attractions..........................................................................................................................12

Cinema of Narrative Integration...................................................................................................17

From Transitional Cinema to Classical Cinema..............................................................17

Post Classical Cinema and Beyond.........................................................................................25

Cinema of Narrative (Dis) Integration?...............................................................................25

Conclusion................................................................................................................................................. 28

List of Movies Presented................................................................................................................... 29

List of Figure Sources.......................................................................................................................... 29

Literature................................................................................................................................................... 30

2

Introductionhe rapid growth of technology in film making and the growing presence of recent Hollywood blockbusters focusing on astonishing special effects and stunt

work have drawn academic attention of whether the “spectacle” gains ground against the narrative and therefore returns to an earlier paradigm, the “cinema of attractions”. Recent theorizing in film has clearly shown a concern towards the new spectacles and the experiences produced by those spectacles. In 1990, film historian Tom Gunning reflected on this issue:

T

“Clearly in some sense recent spectacle cinema has reaffirmed its roots in stimulus and carnival rides, in what might be called the Spielberg-Lucas-Coppola cinema of effects” ( 2005, 61)

Tom Gunning’s “cinema of attractions” is identified as being dominant and overwhelmingly embraced due to the rapid urbanizing world in the late- nineteenth-century and the fact that cinema became interwoven with modernity; a period where “a large portion of the population seems absorbed in the pursuit of pleasure” 1 and attractions (Charney and Schwartz 1995). In the early days that Gunning focuses on, he draws an analogy between the spectators that were amazed by the simple trickeries used to project the image and the special effects applied in contemporary Hollywood cinema. As film director, Jean Douchet argued:

“[Today,] cinema has given up the purpose and the thinking behind individual shots [and narrative], in favour of images - rootless, textureless images - designed to violently impress by constantly inflating their spectacular qualities” 2

Contemporary mainstream popular films, in short, are increasingly identified with spectacle, the pictorial power of the image to entice the audience and the audience’s desire for amusement or distraction. While these advanced pictorial representations of the moving image demonstrate the ubiquity of media spectacle and the mighty impact on audiences, their genealogy and the history of their reception also require consideration. As the editors of Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life Charney and Schwarz (1995) argue modern culture was “cinematic” even before the rise of cinema. The authors identified practices that were contiguous with early cinema and which belonged to the sphere of “attractions” and mass culture. Inspired by current debates surrounding the idea of film as attraction that has become dominant again and in order to understand cinematic spectatorship as a historical practice, it is vitally important to locate cinema in the field of visual spectacles associated with the mass culture and modernity of the late nineteenth century. It seems helpful to identify spectatorship towards visual “attractions” along 1 Quoted in: Charney, Leo and Vanessa Schwartz, eds. Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life. Berkeley/ Los Angeles: U of California P, 1995

2 Jean Douchet quoted in: Buckland, Warren: Between Science Fact and Science Fiction: Spielberg’s Digital Dinosaurs, Possible Worlds, and the New Aesthetic Realism. In: Screen, 40/2, 1999. S. 177-192.

3

with the emergence of new spectacles and relate them to current technological advances in visual spectacles. By adopting approaches by historians like Tom

Gunning, Vanessa R. Schwartz and Leo Charney, Strauven, Wanda, Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell I wish to show how visual spectacles evolved in parallel with modernity and what the impact on the spectators’ experience was. By distancing myself from taking a strictly technological approach, I will demonstrate the advances in the field of “attractions”, whether it is a panorama painting, or a groundbreaking special effect. In addition, by doing that, I will push forward the discontinuities that exist in visual experience and cinema’s periodization. I will along encompass issues of modernity, mass consumption and metropolitan life, to show that cinematic spectatorship went in parallel with these concepts but each and every time was experienced differently.

As Tom Gunning remarks cinema drew upon a variety of visual cultural practices including vaudeville, amusement park rides and magic lantern shows apart from novelistic tradition and literature. Additionally, Schwartz and Charney (1995) suggest that panorama cultivated cinematic modes of viewing even before the cinema apparatus. Therefore, following the aforementioned authors, I begin with the premise that cinematic spectatorship was already established in a variety of cultural practices in the late nineteenth and beginning of twentieth century. For this reason, I identify it in panoramas and vaudeville. I continue then my analysis in the era after the invention of the moving image and analyze various attraction practices which can be considered as pioneering or subversive for their time. These attraction practices which I focus on can be distinguished in the use of special effects and generally in cinematic techniques. Consequently, in order to do that, I look into the cinema of attractions which is considered to be the early form of cinema practice, before narrative integration, and then I move to the cinema after the narrative integration took place. Accordingly, following the philosopher and sociologist Michel Foucault I divide the history of visual spectacles in 3 epistemes that is, pre-cinema history, cinema of attractions and cinema of narrative integration. By drawing upon these epistemes, I do not wish to argue that there is any causal or teleological relation between them. Rather that they include a whole range of different spectacles, which have contributed to our constant change in visual perceptions and where cinema is regarded to be in a permanent flux (Elsaesser 2004).

Pre-cinema History

PanoramasThe panoramas enjoyed the renaissance of entertainment that underwent decay in midcentury and gradually reappeared in the late eighteenth-beginning of nineteenth

4

century in a period characterized by “craving for visual” and the urge for amusement (Miller 1996). Panoramas, like later on photography and the moving image, were connected with visual representation of space and the skillful manipulation of perspective. The craze for early panoramas could be noticed by the massive popular interest to witness the realistic representations of nature, battles or historical events. For example, figure 1 illustrates a handbill dated back in 1880 where the artist Walter Bayne created the largest panorama that was ever presented in public3. The advertisement shows that the moving panoramas were popular for the representations of harbors, voyages and city-view scapes. The panorama illustrated in the figure includes astonishing views of Boston and its harbor, Halifax, the Atlantic, the River Mersey, Liverpool, London from the River Thames, and both sides of the River Rhine. These types of panorama experienced a warm acceptance from the public because they could show different parts of the world which the audience could not directly reach. Taking a look at media history, stereoscope was also related to virtual “travel”. For example, the media archaeologist Erkki Huhtamo describes the experience of a spectator looking at a stereoscope as a “virtual voyager”. Specifically, Huhtamo considered technology as a means of virtual travel where the screen immobilizes the spectator physically and virtually by the moving images (1995). In this sense, part of panorama served as a virtual travel to places around the globe and fulfilled the virtual curiosity of the public.

As Schwartz and Charney (1995) observe, virtual curiosity found its place in early panoramas due to the fact that they served as “visual corollaries of the popular press” (312). Panoramas on that stage, represented daily events and attracted the public that was curious to see the view of events, places and people that had heard on the news. As the authors mention, the public was delighted with the realistic re-creations of things that they were familiar with.

3 Boston Daily Mail, Dec. 15, 1847

5

Figure 1: This advertisement from 1880 in Washington invites audience to the last exhibition of Walter Bayne's Original Gigantic Series of Panoramas Entitled “A Voyage to Europe!”

The rapid industrialization, urbanization and population growth, all characteristics of modernity, provided a large target market for panorama to thrive. As an article in Le Voltaire observed in response to the sudden popularity of panoramas, “We are entering Panoramia”4. Early panoramas, though static and lacking the element of motion, they were mostly promoted as commodities and commercial forms of entertainment5. These early panoramas developed illusionary representations by surrounding spectators with a 360° circular painting, mixing three-dimensional objects with the painted canvas in an effort to make the representations so real as to impress the viewers (Miller 1996). The panorama was experienced as “a vast circular representation of objects, where the eye reached to a horizon, and there being no limit, the illusion was complete” (Foucaud 1847, 94). Since in panoramic paintings the viewer fulfilled a desire for visual simulation of reality, the medium was then further developed. It thus incorporated the movement, bringing into light the horizontally moving panorama and Daguerre’s diorama further into cosmorama, georama, uranorama and neorama.

As the media and culture scholar Nana Verhoeff argues, these types of moving panoramas were the result of society’s criticism about the limits of exhibiting visual illusion in the early circular panoramas (2007). Circular panoramas, although

4 Le Voltaire, 3 January 1881, cited in Schwartz and Charney 19955 Andrew Czink, 2007:http://andrewczink.wordpress.com/papers/objects-in-the-panorama-are-closer-than-they-appear-landscape-illusion-and-the-mesdag-panorama/

6

elicited expectations of movement, the viewer knew that the objects he was looking at were no further than the canvas, thus limiting in a way the illusionary effect. In this sense, Nana Verhoeff states:

“The size of the canvas evoked an expectation of movement, but in fact emphasized the images’ motionless state. The images of vehicles, animals, and people made it increasingly apparent that these stood still. This was seen as a huge constraint, taxing the panoramic desire”. (2007, 11)

Figure 2: Moving panorama, from Scientific American, 1848

Throughout the history of panoramas, one can observe accounts of spectators experiencing disorientation and the blurring between art and reality. As the art scholar Angela Miller emphasizes, the panorama was regarded as a simulacrum of reality, offering spectators the “visual control and mastery over an emergent urban environment often disorienting in its confusion and physical complexity” (1996, 53). Notions of indisposition are also evident. For example, the German theologian and philosopher Johann Augustus Eberhard’s criticism towards the medium was justified by the need to escape illusion6 “I feel myself trapped in the net of a contradictory dream-world, . . . not even comparison with the bodies that surround me can awake me from this terrifying nightmare, which I must go on dreaming against my will.’’. This experience, the exhibition of urban

6 Guoted in: Grau Oliver. 2003, 64

7

environments in a two-dimensional projection in a canvas, constituted the idea behind panorama’s invention; the impulse to reproduce in a medium the experience of reality simulation, disorientation and astonishment not previously encountered in any other medium.

The age of panorama however was replaced in the early twentieth century with the spectacle of cinema. A possible reason that the masses started losing their interest in panorama was the fact that this medium was no longer able to compete with the emergence of cinema (Lister et al 2009). Soon the audiences satisfied their desire for kinaesthetic rides in the movies exploring new forms of visual spectacles and new experiences with the emergent medium.

In 1996, following the approach of the philosopher and social theorist Michel Foucault, Angela Miller in The Panorama, the Cinema, and the Emergence of the Spectacular questions the relation between panorama viewer and contemporary movie viewer in terms of experience and whether there is some historical development “linking them together within the same discursive or experiential mode” (Miller 1996, 47). This observation challenges to question what are the aesthetic perception connections across the history of visual spectacles. Has the idea of film as attraction become dominant again due to the constant pressure wielded by postmodernism and society’s urge for “more” and “better” visual spectacles? This is not to argue though that history repeats itself. The goal is to show that in the discourse surrounding the history of visual spectacles, spectators’ perceptions evolve forming a discontinuous rather than a linear experience.

Vaudeville Vaudeville experienced an ardent embrace in the late nineteenth century- beginning of twentieth century, almost the same period with the panorama’s establishment in popular entertainment scene. What is though noteworthy about vaudeville is that it also marked popular entertainment as a big business7 attracting lots of Americans who desired diversified amusements and exciting visual spectacles. Vaudeville in its early developments included a series of performances surrounded by musicians, comedians, acrobats, magicians and conjurers. In addition, at a further stage it incorporated short moving images which provoked feelings of awe and wonder and soon won a permanent place in the handbills of vaudeville attractions8. Beginning in the 1880s and through the 1920s, vaudeville became America’s popular entertainment dominant attraction that welcomed more than 25,000 performers

7More info on Vaudeville as “business” http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma02/easton/vaudeville/vaudevillemain.html

8 More info on Vaudeville history: http://www.goodmagic.com/carny/vaud.htm

8

and became an essential part of every community9. A vaudeville manager commented:

“Our vaudeville theatres make strong appeals to the public by offering an entertainment that amuses without taxing. To those whose minds are full of business cares and who do not feel up to following the dialogue and situations of a play which demands a certain amount of intellectual effort, vaudeville is a boon”. New York Herald, September 3, 1893

As the remark derived from the newspaper “New York Herald” suggests, vaudeville represented a form of popular attraction and heterogeneous splendor "the first emanation of a pervasive and purely American mass culture," in "the heart of nineteenth-century show business" (Tosches 2002). Like panorama, vaudeville flourished in the period of modernity, a period characterized by the rise of a metropolitan urban culture, in which society sought new forms of entertainment and leisure activity (Charney and Schwartz 1995). The popularity of vaudeville performances soon stretched across the country; almost every large city had its own vaudeville theater while vaudeville circuits were performing in several cities offering the opportunity to audiences from inaccessible places to attend them. Even though, “[t]o an outsider, the sequence of acts looked as random as the scenes glimpsed from a trolley car on a busy city street”10, the performances were generally applauded. However, there were also criticisms that depicted the moral anxieties that this spectacle brought about:

The Russell Sage Survey [commissioned by a middle-class reform group in the 1910s] of popular entertainments found vaudeville ‘depends upon an artificial rather than a natural human and developing interest, these acts having no necessary and as a rule, no actual connection’... A night at the variety theatre was like a ride on a streetcar or an active day in a crowded city . . . stimulating an unhealthy nervousness.(Gunning 1990a, 60)

9 Information derived from : http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/vaudeville/about-vaudeville/721/

10 Snyder, Robert W. The Voice of the City: Vaudeville and Popular Culture in NewYork. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989.

9

Figure 3: Handbill for the Vaudeville Saloon, the earliest known appearance of a season of American vaudeville. (1840)

Figure 4: Vaudeville Theater

10

The artificiality which Gunning comments on stems from the aim of vaudeville to offer purely exhibitionistic performances. Magic and tricks were a part of them and had an evident place on vaudeville theaters; magicians and conjurers were often featured. As magic historian Jim Steinmever observes “Music halls and vaudeville theatres had created a market for short magic acts. . . . The old style of Robert-Houdin, Herrmann, Kellar, and Maskelyne was a full show dependent on establishing the performer's personality and introducing a wide variety of deceptions over the course of a couple of hours. The new acts were faster and flashier, emphasizing specific novelties” (Steinmeyer 2003). Vaudeville managers exploited this form of popular entertainment and amalgamated a variety of performances like shadowgraphy, magic-lantern shows, puppetry, and other magical tricks in an effort to showcase “something for everyone” attracting the middle class and the working class, women and men (Allen 1980, 311).

In United States, vaudeville theaters were also considered as primary venues for film projections (Allen 1980). As Tom Gunning proposes vaudeville and generally magic theater performances caused “an aesthetic of astonishment” to spectators who were overwhelmed by emotions of thrill and awe. The Italian poet and editor Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, when writing on the variety theater, acclaimed its aesthetics of astonishment but also the impact it had on spectator; spectator was no longer a “static”, “stupid voyeur” but an active participant in the show, by singing and interacting with the performers (1973). Furthermore, film historian Matthew Solomon comments that vaudeville performances primarily fulfilled virtual curiosities than provoked contemplation by involving an “exhibitionistic confrontation” with the spectator as early cinema did (Solomon, 2006). This exhibitionistic confrontation explains why early films were dominated by circus acts and magic tricks, lacking any dramatic and narrative unity (Gunning 1989). As Tom Gunning remarks in his article Bodies and Phantoms: Making Visible the Beginnings of Motion Pictures, there was nothing that earlier cinema had not adopted from other forms of popular entertainment (1994, 86).

As years went by, vaudeville theaters, by incorporating more and more film screenings eventually edged out the rest of performances. Mainstream audiences soon abandoned this form of popular entertainment in the search of more captivating and technologically advanced visual spectacles. Although there is no abrupt end to vaudeville history and without aiming to be teleological, the substitution of live performances for film screenings had already begun to take place in the beginning of twentieth century.

The evolution of early cinematic techniques

Cinema of Attractions

11

The panorama and vaudeville thrive declined when the spectacle of cinema emerged. The cinema of attractions gradually established itself as many filmmakers were experimenting with the capabilities of film in an attempt to show “more” and tell “less”. This observation was adopted by Tom Gunning who accentuated the fact that, film before the year 1906 had a different interaction with the audience than with the inclusion of narrative, and coined it as “cinema of attractions”. This denotation, however, was first employed by Sergei Eisenstein in order to describe “the sensual and psychological impact of a non-representational, non-realistic theatre, whose impact he sought to duplicate through the use of montage” (Martin 2003, 111). Tom Gunning then inferred from Eisenstein’s term to generate “cinema of attractions”. Cinema of attractions was used to describe pre-narrative movies who were addressing the spectators with a series of views. In addition, the term also served in describing “actively attracted viewers as in a vaudeville show, producing a sensation of immediacy and involvement that narrowed the gap between spectator and spectacle” (ibid, 111).

Throughout the pre-narrative movies, we can identify many creative production processes that made use of tricks, magic and generally cinematic techniques, all of which established the ground for the later use of special effects. For instance, the films of the French filmmaker Georges Méliès, often named as the “Father of Cinematic Special Effects” present a paradigm on the excessive use of magical special effects and film editing. Méliès began his career as stage magician at the Theatre Robert-Houdin in Paris, in fairground magic and illusionism, which he later adapted in his films. The filmography of this director is vast, including more that 500 titles 11 of short films in the period between 1896 and 1913. The first trick George Méliès used was in his short film The Vanishing Lady (1897). In this film a magician invites a lady into a room to sit on a chair. He then takes a large tablecloth, unfolds it over the woman so that she is completely covered and finally removes it. Instead of seeing the woman, the audience surprisingly notices a skeleton in her position. The magician repeats the same procedure, placing the tablecloth over the skeleton where we eventually watch the woman reappearing on the chair. What was enough back then to provoke wonder and astonishment can now be easily attributed to the use of “jump cut” mainly a cut in film editing between sequential shots.

11 According to the Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0617588/

12

Figure 5: Méliès doing his trick on The Vanishing Lady (1897)

La Voyage Dans la Lune (1902) directed by George Méliès, a 14 minute masterpiece in the turn of the century, is considered to be pioneer in the use of innovative special effects by integrating stop-action, double exposure, superimposed images, dissolves, matte paintings and miniature models, techniques that were all susceptible of impressing spectators12 .

12 More info about the film :http://www.filmsite.org/visualeffects1.html

13

Figure 6: La Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) painting by George Méliès

As Tom Gunning demonstrates in The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, it’s Spectator and the Avant-Garde, pre-narrative cinema which is located in the form of George Méliè’s work “directly solicits spectator attention, inciting visual curiosity, and supplying pleasure through an exciting spectacle – a unique event, whether fictional or documentary, that is of interest in itself” (1990, 58). This virtual curiosity is also illustrated in Méliès’s description of his audience:

“In exhibition halls I have often heard the most absurd remarks unquestionably proving that a large number of spectators are miles away from imagining how much work goes into the views they were watching. Some of them, understanding nothing of the way in which “that can be done,” simply and naïvely say: It’s only a trick! Or else: They must have taken those in a theater! and, satisfied by their explanation, they conclude with: It doesn’t matter, it’s well made all the same” (George Méliès 1907)

According to Gunning, the nineteenth century fostered this form of “lust of the eyes” and commercially exploited it (1989). He states that spectators’ visual curiosity is aroused when confronting such spectacles and is longing for more. In addition, the psychological impact of the early films can also be explained by the fact that spectators were still viewing early films in conjunction with other popular entertainments such us vaudeville (at least before its definite decline). For this

14

reason they were often comparing the power of the visual display of the spectacle, and consequently the lack of narrative in it, with the theatrical of vaudeville or theater performances. This kind of relationship between visual display versus narrative contemplation in early film has been discussed by media scholars (e.g. Barnouw 1981 and Gaudreault 1987) as well as by film historians (e.g. Gunning 1990). For example:

Theatrical display dominates over narrative absorption, emphasizing the direct stimulation of shock or surprise at the expense of unfolding a story or creating a diegetic universe. The cinema of attractions expends little energy creating characters with psychological motivations or individual personality . . . its energy moves outward towards an acknowledged spectator rather than inward towards the character-based situations essential to classical narrative. (Gunning 1990a, 59)

The popularity of these cinematic techniques and early special effects indicates a strong appeal to the audiences. The attractions’ significance does not rest just in the use of special effects and artificial techniques but first and foremost to their impact on the audience’s perception (Lister et al 2009). In this sense, as the moving pictures developed, special effects and film editing techniques gradually became sophisticated and technologically advanced in order to embrace larger audiences. The Lumiere Brothers were along with those that grabbed the potential of cinematic techniques as the Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896) provoked feelings of astonishment and disorientation. The film consists of just a single shot of a train arriving at the station. The media historian Erik Barnouw describes the experience of watching the film: “the camera is placed on the platform near the edge of the track. The arrival of the train - virtually “on camera” - made spectators scream and dodge… [this] offered audiences an experience quite foreign to the theater” (Barnouw 1981, 8). Apart from the powerful effect that the film provoked it also displays signs of modernity by presenting the world on display and satisfy urges of visual curiosity towards different places, sceneries and events (Rizzo 2008). Furthermore, as the media scholar Wanda Strauven notices, the Lumiere films tellingly incorporate the railway and panorama into their titles as a hint to the pre-cinema history spectacle experiences (2006).

15

Figure 7: Screenshots from the movie Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896)

Along similar lines, a same effect was achieved in other movies at that time. For example, the Philadelphia Inquirer's report of the 1903 screening of the movie The Great Train Robbery directed by Edwin S. Porter describes how the spectators perceived it:

"There is a great amount of shooting. The smoke of the pistols is plainly seen, and men drop dead right and left, but no sound is heard. Nevertheless, while witnessing the exhibition women put their fingers to their ears to shut out the noise of the firing." (Altman 1997, 648)

16

Figure 8: A scene from The Great Train Robbery (1903)

The aforementioned remark emphasizes the film’s novelty in film making by exhibiting a series of events in a spectacular way. What is worth mentioning is the fact that although the film is silent, the mastering of cinematic techniques employed, urged spectators to block their ears as if they heard real sounds of shootings.

Cinema of Narrative Integration

From Transitional Cinema13 to Classical CinemaWe all need our illusions no matter how false we know they are. Time Magazine, 1967

Spectators progressively adapted to early cinematic effects in a “willingness to participate in modernity” (Strauven 2007, 168). However, as we already mentioned in the previous chapters, the influence of narrative gradually emerges taking the lead in films against mere display. That does not mean though that attractions ceased to exist; rather that they simply went underground (Gunning 1990). As the scholar Charlie Keil (2007) states, during the period of transitional cinema the spectator tries to learn how to comprehend cinema’s narrativity. In parallel, filmmakers are in search for new methods and novelties to impress audiences while exhibitors began to build or convert -previous vaudeville- theaters for showing films. Part of the move towards narrative integration involved the increase of the length of the films. Feature films began to arise and along with them the “star system”. By 1910, exhibitors and production companies responded to audience demand and begun to exploit popular actors for publicity (Thompson and Bordwell 1994). However, since commercial filmmaking eventually oriented towards storytelling, filmmakers were also concerned with how to make spectators comprehend their movies while at the same time streamline their cinematic techniques in order to achieve that.

13 A term coined by Charlie Keil to describe cinema from 1907-1913 in: Strauven, Wanda, ed. (2007) The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

17

One of the greatest challenges of this period was to create a story. In this sense, film editing techniques were a boon to the filmmakers in an effort to prevent spectators from confusion in terms of “spatial and temporal relations” between the shots (idem 43).

David Llewelyn Wark Griffith is a director often associated with advanced camera and narrative techniques of that era. Griffith wanted spectators to maintain the illusion of reality throughout his movies without them being disoriented by unsuccessful cuts and edits. He thus began to revolutionize film through the use of camera movement, editing, lighting and composition. The impact of the use of intercutting, mainly the back and forth movement between actions in separate spaces, can be distinguished in the movie The Lonely Villa (1909).There is a scene that involves three actions which take place in different spaces; a man, the thieves and the family inside the house. The audience was transfixed and waited for something to happen in the movie. A contemporary viewer14 describes the emotions provoked by the scene:

"Thank God, they're saved!” said a woman behind us at the conclusion of the Biograph film bearing the above name. Just like this woman, the entire audience was in a state of intense excitement as this picture was being shown”

Figure 9: Three scenes screened in parallel in the movie The Lonely Villa (1909)

International films were a major influence on American filmmakers of the 1920s. For instance, Sergei Eisenstein’s Russian film Battleship Potemkin (1925) famous for its pioneering use of montage, the excessive use of cross-cut images, graphic contrasts, and mise-en-scene, produced great emotional response which was amplified by close ups, long shots and subtle time shifts. Eisenstein believed that montage is the most powerful cinematic technique that it can penetrate the subconscious, and stimulate psycho-physiological responses15. The power of the famous Odessa Steps sequence and the psychological responses it induced is highlighted by film historian Marilyn Fabe:

14 Quoted in:Thompson and Bordwell 1994, 48

15 More on Eisenstein:http://filmdirectors.co/sergei-eisenstein-filmmaking-techniques/

18

“By refusing to orient the spectator in a coherent screen space, Eisenstein adds greatly to the affective power of the scene. The lack of spatial orientation on the Odessa Steps works because it compels spectators to experience something of the same mental confusion and loss of bearings that the people on the steps suffer.” (2004, 33)

Figure 10: Scenes from the movie Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Similarly, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) is a visually compelling expressionist film that features innovative special effects and set designs. The Austrian-American director advanced his cinematic techniques by using model miniatures for presenting city scapes as well as to create the illusion of live actors on the set. This early cinematic technique constitutes the precursor of the later matte method and chroma key that is used in contemporary movies.

19

Figure 11: Shots from the Metropolis (1927) depicting the use of miniature models.

In the next few years, new techniques were developed to help filmmakers polish their movies. Filmmakers were no longer bounded by technological barriers of the previous decade, thus, they relied “increasingly on special effects to tell their increasingly elaborate stories” (Rickitt 2000, 18). In 1922, the American Cinematographer magazine declared: “Give Us A Place to Stand and We Will Film the Universe”; clearly showing the spirit of that time and the confidence in the use of technology.

In the 1920s, Hollywood had over 70 percent of world film revenues (Noam 2010). The audiences were waiting in long queues outside the movie theaters to enjoy film screenings. Meanwhile films using animation grew in sophistication and popularity (idem, 19). Douglas Gray in the 1929’s issue of Modern Mechanix notices how powerful the special effects can be for simulating reality and make the spectators to believe that what they watch in the movies is real16: 16 Found in Modern Mechanix. Issue: January 1929 http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2009/12/07/faking-movies-scenes/

20

“SEEING is believing -unless you happen to see it in the movies! The next time you step into your favorite movie theater to see some million dollar production, don’t stop to marvel at the luxurious palaces and castles which you see on the silver screen, because the chances are a hundred to one that they didn’t exist at all— except as a thin film of paint which fooled the gullible camera lens so completely that the innocent thing didn’t even suspect it was being made fun of!”

Figure 12: The American Cinematographer issue November (1922)

In the beginning of 1940s filmmakers had already experienced various techniques; matte painting, matte photography, rear projection and optical printing. In addition, this period went through the rise of color photography, although the majority of films continued to be shot in black-and-white (Rickitt 2000). A great role for the

21

movies’ success had also the script; the powerful storytelling which had already established itself, positioned spectators “as a voyeur absorbed into and spying on a self-enclosed narrative world” (Elsaesser 2004). By contract to the cinema of attractions, the cinema of narrative integration does not directly address to the audience; the film does not directly acknowledge spectators’ presence (Metz 1965). Therefore the spectator is no longer distracted; rather he dives into a contemplation amplified by the power of the storytelling.Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) included the use of such techniques and storytelling resulting in an innovative cinematography, narrative structure and illusionary visual effects. The use of subjective camera, shadows and interesting camera angles, close-ups and camera movements, pioneering sound techniques and non-linear storytelling (flashbacks and flash-forwards) present a fine example of filmmaking that was embraced with overwhelmingly positive reviews. For instance, Kate Cameron, in her review for the New York Daily-News, remarked that Citizen Kane was "one of the most interesting and technically superior films that has ever come out of a Hollywood studio"17. In addition, the journalist, author and film critic Bosley Crowther in his review for the New York Times commented: “Citizen Kane is far and away the most surprising and cinematically exciting motion picture to be seen here in many a moon . . . it comes close to being the most sensational film ever made in Hollywood.”18

Hollywood cinema entered the 1960s with as the author Richard Rickitt calls it “trepidation” because the advent of television provided a cheap, easily accessible and alternative form of popular entertainment and drew the attention of the audiences ( 2000, 27). Cinema attendances were decreased and theaters were closing. In an effort to win back audiences Hollywood soon started to produce a broad range of mainstream movies many of which were focusing on pure gimmickry and “persuading [itself] that 3-D films might be the industry's saviour” (idem, 25). It was until the end of the decade though that a film of “unprecedented visual impact drawing on the most astonishing special effects yet seen” appeared in theaters (idem, 29). Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) received ecstatic praise both from critics and spectators with its extensive use of special effects and was considered to be way ahead of its time. For the director, producer and photographer Stanley Kubrick realism was crucial. Therefore in order to portray the actions taken place in space he made use of the major special effects that had been developed in that decade.

17 Cameron, Kate (May 2, 1941). "Citizen Kane". New York. Originally quoted in Wikipedia.

18 Quoted in Pauline Kael, “Raising Kane,” 43.

22

Figure 13: Posters exclaiming the use of 3-D in order to attract audiences.

Figure 14: 1950s spectators wearing anaglyphic glasses to enjoy a 3-D movie.

23

Post Classical Cinema and Beyond

Cinema of Narrative (Dis) Integration?

In a decade where feature films like George Lucas direction of Star Wars (1977) or Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) met great popularity, the discussion about “visual” over narrativity showed up again. The studios exploited the commercial success of these movies, part of which built upon the use of advanced special effects, and turned to a new generation of filmmakers looking for similar productions (Rickitt 2000). Hollywood started a pursuit for the most astonishing images in order to increase its business and maintain the moviegoers. In this sense, the 1970s were characterized by the revival of special effects in a technologically advanced and evolutionary way and became a paradigm for future films.

Interestingly, the film critic and author James Monaco remarks that the years between 1980s and 1990s are distinguished by the production of action-adventure films that focus more on attraction rather than character development and storytelling (2000). Monaco elaborates on the rise of this genre: “characterized by a thin veneer of science fiction and fantasy, which gives the effects specialists the excuse to ply their trade, contemporary Action movies succeed by exploiting a deeply felt need for visceral excitement and the thrill of violence” (2000, 361). Hollywood flourished, new movie theaters begun to emerge and movies had a fairground aspect, directly “devoted to the only pleasure of the shocking images” (Strauven 2007, 309). Even George Lucas recognized that his films are leaning towards amusement park rides than a play or novel19.

In the realm of special effects, 1990s saw the rise of digital imaging and film makers discovered new ways to embellish their films. In complete accord to these advancements, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) or the Chuck Russell’s Mask (1994) constitute instances of the use of computer generated imagery. Both films received enthusiastic reviews from critics who praised the use of advanced special effects. The American journalist Janet Maslin in her review for New York Times commented:

“The Mask underscores the shrinking importance of conventional story-telling in special effects-minded movies, which are happy to overshadow quaint ideas about plot and character with flashy up-to-the-minute gimmickry”(Janet Maslin, New York Times, quoted in Lister et al 2009, 143)

According to Lister et al (2009) the rise of these films that are characterized by the vast use of special effects and cinematic techniques, are commonly experienced as artificial mainly because they are often connected with technology rather than art. Film historian and scholar Thomas Elsaesser terms the feelings provoked by

19 Time 15 June 1981. Quoted by Laurent Jullier in L’Ecran post-moderne. Un cinema de l’allusion et du feu d’artifice (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997)37.

24

watching post classical Hollywood cinema as “engulfment” (1998). The scholar Richard Rushton explains the notion of engulfment as “a characteristic trend in contemporary Hollywood cinema that brings forth spectacular visual effects which directly push the viewer into moods of awe and wonder, but also into modes of disorientation, affective complexity and shock” (2001). In addition, new media scholar Angela Ndalianis when reviewing The Matrix (1999) expressed the feelings that the movie induced to her:

“My visual and aural faculties were plunged into a state of disorientation that constituted a physical assault on my senses. Not only was an array of framing effects and camera movements employed - from high velocity pans, tracks and fast paced edits, to 360° camera somersaults - but there was motion and there was lots of it! Bodies, cameras, sound and visual effects - everything moved and it moved fast, even when 'bullet-time' speed was visualized through slow motion techniques” (2000)

In the wake of Star Wars (1977) or the coming The Matrix (1999) a great amount of movies that were based on special effects and visual pleasure emerged. The digital revolution and the subsequent ability of capturing images with no loss of quality established the ground for Hollywood’s thriving. The advent of motion picture film format IMAX offered the opportunity to photograph and record images of great capacity and resolution and produce exquisite lifelike settings. Aim of these technologies is to enhance spectators’ experience by inciting them “in visual excess and visceral kinaesthesia” (Lister et al 2009, 150). IMAX with its spherical projection of images is often described as a revival of panorama. IMAX films are shown on enormous screens projecting images that exceed the field of human vision. The big screen of the theaters in combination with the excellent quality of the image, carry away spectators and provoke them feelings of astonishment.

A recent example of a movie that used the IMAX format is Avatar (2009). Avatar is a science fiction film by the director, producer, screenwriter and editor James Cameron. For this movie, a number of ground-breaking Oscar-winning special effects were used and the film was generally well received by critics. For instance, the journalist Manohla Dargis in his review for the New York Times commented: “This isn’t the 3-D of the 1950s or even contemporary films, those flicks that try to give you a virtual poke in the eye with flying spears. Rather Mr. Cameron uses 3-D to amplify the immersive experience of spectacle cinema. Instead of bringing you into the movie with the customary tricks, with a widescreen or even IMAX image filled with sweeping landscapes and big action, he uses 3-D seemingly to close the space between the audience and the screen. He brings the movie to you”. On the contrary, the journalist Owen Gleiberman for Entertainment Weekly expressed his concern for the movie’s strong focus on attraction implying that the narrative seems to be beside the point: “As spectacle, Avatar is indelible — a true rush — but as a movie it all but evaporates as you watch it20”.

20 Owen Gleiberman 30-12-09 http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20326743,00.html

25

The comment of the journalist Owen Gleiberman, intimates a certain fear or doubt about this emerging and gradually establishing genre. Are we indeed heading to a revival of the “Cinema of Attractions” as Tom Gunning states in The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde21? Do 3-D movies and recent Hollywood blockbusters constitute an incarnation of the cinema of attractions, the signs of which already appeared in the movies of the directors Steven Spielberg, George Lucas or Ridley Scott during the late 1970s? Much of the current debate has focused on what the future holds for filmmaking and whether the idea of film as attraction becomes dominant again reflecting post-modernity’s pressing issues. As the cinema enters the twenty-first century, the technology of special effects and film editing techniques has been continually improved. As Rickitt observes only a” few creative barriers remain to be broken” (2000, 288). The current amazing advances in technology in computer-generated imagery and artificial intelligence, has enabled the production of any kind of movie setting in the most spectacular way.

Figure 15: Spectators’ reaction towards the IMAX experience

ConclusionIn an era where spectators are bombarded with captivating spectacles which use the latest advance in technology, there is always an urge for more. This urge manifests society’s desire and curiosity for new visual experiences and consequently spectacles that go along with the advances in technology and urban

21 This refers to Tom Gunning’s statement quoted in the introduction

26

life. The German critic Hermann Kienzl elaborated on the phenomenon that movies depict and express urban life. In a 1911 newspaper column he commented: “The psychology of the cinematographic triumph is metropolitan psychology. The metropolitan soul, that ever-harried soul, curious and unanchored, tumbling from fleeting impression to fleeting impression, is quite rightly the cinematographic soul”22. But even before the rise of cinema, we notice that vaudeville and panorama flourished in the late nineteenth century because they offered to the public, experiences, views and perspectives that reflected the tempo of modern life and a virtual curiosity. As Elsaesser accurately points out: “What in the very early years of the last century had been the attraction of the technical apparatus itself—with its miraculous capacity to bring images to life and to animate photographed street-scenes, panoramic landscape views or human beings in their everyday = surroundings—became by the end of the century the attraction of digital images and fantasy worlds, which also cast a spell on audiences and drew from them gasps of disbelief” (2004, 81).

Surprisingly, in the contemporary post-modern era, Tom Gunning notices a déjà vu, in the sense that cinema returns to an earlier paradigm; that of attractions. However, when considering this shift in the way movies are produced, it is hard to neglect society’s driving force behind the Hollywood motion picture. As the scholar Charles Acland suggests, society undergoes a "cinematic cosmopolitanism" (2003, 195). Interestingly, this phenomenon is built upon the production of spectacular exhibitionistic movies and their distribution in megaplex theaters, all of which represent the miniaturization of the theme parks in response to society’s needs concerning urban life (idem).  While a century ago, the cinema of attractions did not succeed in maintaining the audiences, it’s now interesting to see how this new era of attractions will evolve. Certainly, filmmakers will always invent new ways to entertain and astonish us.

List of Movies Presented

The Vanishing Lady (1897)La Voyage Dans la Lune (1902)Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896)The Great Train Robbery (1903)The Lonely Villa (1909)Battleship Potemkin (1925)

22 quoted in Anton Kaes, “The Debate About Cinema: Charting a Controversy (1909-1929}," New German Critique 40: 12

27

Metropolis (1927)Citizen Kane (1941)2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)Star Wars (1977)Alien (1979)Jurassic Park (1993)Mask (1994)The Matrix (1999)Avatar (2009)

List of Figures SourcesFigure 1: Panorama Handbill http://www.precinemahistory.net/panoramahandbill.htmFigure 2: Moving Panorama http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Moving_panoramaFigure 3: Vaudeville Handbill (Cullen et al 2007)Figure 4: Vaudeville Theater (Cullen et al 2007)Figure 5: The Vanishing Lady (1897) (screenshots from the movie)Figure 6: La Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) http://babylonbaroque.wordpress.com/category/georges-melies/Figure 7: Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896) (screenshots from the movie)Figure 8: The Great Train Robbery (1903) (screenshot from the movie)Figure 9: The Lonely Villa (1909) (Bordwell and Thompson 1994)Figure 10: Battleship Potemkin (1925) (screenshots from the movie)Figure 11: Metropolis (1927) (screenshots from the movie)Figure 12: Front cover from the American Cinematographer (1922) http://www.moviemags.com/ Figure 13: 3-D attack (Rickitt 2000) and http://www.moviemags.com/Figure 14: 1950s spectators (Rickitt 2000)Figure 15: IMAX experience (Rickitt 2000)

28

LiteratureAcland, Charles R. 2003.Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture; Duke University Press Durham NC 

Allen, Robert. C.1980. Vaudeville and Film, 1895-1915: A Study in Media Interaction .New York: Arno Press, 57-64, 311

Barnouw, Erik. 1981. The magician and the cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Bordwell David and Kristin Thompson. 1994. Film History: An Introduction. New York:McGraw-Hill

Charney, Leo and Vanessa Schwartz.1995. eds. Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life. Berkeley/ Los Angeles: U of California P

Cullen, Frank, Florence Hackman and Donald McNeilly. 2007. Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America. New York: Routledge

Dargis Manohla. 18-12-09. A New Eden, Both Cosmic and Cinematic. http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/movies/18avatar.html?ref=movies

Elsaesser, Thomas. 1998. ‘Digital Cinema: Delivery, Event, Time’, in Thomas Elsaesser and Kay Hoffmann (eds), Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable? The Screen Arts in the Digital Age, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 201–22

Elsaesser, Thomas. 2004. The New Film History as Media Archaeology. Cinémas, vol. 14, 2-3. Retrieved February 25, 2005, [www.erudit.org/revue/cine/2004/v14/n2-3/index.htm].

Fabe, Marilyn.2004. Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique .Berkeley: University of California Press

Foucaud, Edward. 1847. The Book of Illustrious Mechanics of Europe and America. Translated by John Frost. D. Appleton & Co., New York

Gaudreault, André. 1987. Theatricality, narrativity, and ‘trickality’: Reevaluating the cinema of Georges Méliès. Journal of Popular Film and Television 5, no. 3: 110–19.

Gaudreault, André. 2006. From ‘Primitive Cinema’ to ‘Kine-Attractography’. In The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded: Film Culture in Transition, ed. Wanda Strauven, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 85-104.

Gleiberman Owen. 30-12-09. Avatar (2009). http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20326743,00.html

29

Grau Oliver. 2003. Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion

Gunning, Tom. 2005. Cinema of Attractions. Encyclopedia of Early Cinema. Ed. Richard Abel. London/New York: Routledge

Gunning, Tom. 1989. An Aesthetic of Astonishment: Early Film and the (In) Credulous Spectator. Art and Text 34: 114-133.

Gunning, Tom. 1993. Now You See It, Now You Don‘t: The Temporality of the Cinema of Attractions. The Velvet Light Trap 32 (1993): 71-84.

Gunning, Tom. 1990. The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde. In: Elsaesser T. 1990. Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative. London: BFI Publishing, 56-62.

Gunning, Tom. 1994. Bodies and Phantoms: Making Visible the Beginnings of Motion Pictures. Binocular, pp.84-99.

Hermann Kienzl. 1987. Theater und Kinematograph, Der Strom! I (1911/1912): 219-220; quoted in Anton Kaes, “The Debate About Cinema: Charting a Controversy (1909-1929}," New German Critique 40: 12 Huhtamo, Erkki.‘ Armchair Traveller on the Ford of Jordan’. In Mediamatic Magazine, vol. 8, no. 2/3, 1995, pp. 13-24.

Marinetti Filippo Tommaso. 1973. “The Variety Theater (1913),” .Futurist Manifestos, ed. Umbro Apollonio (New York: Viking, 1973) 127

Martin Jay.2003. Refractions of Violence. New York: Routledge.

Méliès, Georges. 1988. Cinematographic Views trans. Stuart Liebman, in French Film Theory and Criticism: A History / Anthology, vol. 1, ed. Richard Abel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 35

Metz, Christian. 1965. On the Impression of Reality in the Cinema. Film Language. A Semiotics of the Cinema, translated by Michael Taylor, 3-15. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. Originally published as “A propos de l’impression de réalité au cinéma”, in Cahiers du cinéma 166-167 (1965)

Miller, Angela. 1996. The Panorama, the Cinema, and the Emergence of the Spectacular. Wide Angle 18, no. 2, 34-69. 43

Monaco James. 2000. 3.ed. How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, Multimedia. New York/ USA, Oxford University Press

30

Ndalianis, Angela. 2000. The Frenzy of the Visible: Spectacle and Motion in the Era of the Digital. In Senses of Cinema <http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/3/index.html> Accessed 19 March 2002.

Rickitt Richard. 2000. Special Effects: The History and Technique. London: Virgin Books

Rizzo, Teresa. 2008. YouTube, The New Cinema of Attractions. http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php?journal_id=109

Rushton, Richard. 2001. Narrative and Spectacle in Gladiator. CineAction, No. 56, pp. 34-43.

Solomon, Matthew. 2006. Up-to-Date Magic: Theatrical Conjuring and theTrick Film. Theatre Journal, 58: 4, pp. 595–615.

Steinmeyer, Jim. 2003. Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2003), 203.

Strauven, Wanda, ed. 2007. The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Tosches, Nick .2002. Where Dead Voices Gather. Boston: Back Bay Books. p. 11.

Uricchio, William. A ‘Proper Point of View’: The Panorama and Some of Its Early Media Iterations. Erkki Huhtamo (ed.). Forthcoming

Verhoeff Nanna .2007. Panorama NL: Designing the Interface of Highways held at the conference MiT

31