Dumb cinema

The emergence of silent cinema was preceded by the invention of various technologies for creating moving images, such as zootrop , phenakistisk , zupraksiskop , stroboscope and many others. Recording and reproducing a moving image of existing objects would have been impossible without the invention of photography in the first half of the 19th century and its improvement, which would make it possible to take snapshots with exposures of a split second. An intermediate stage between photography and cinema is considered to be chronophotography , originally intended to study the rapid movements of animals and people. In the history of cinema there were several important dates:

• In 1871, Richard Meddox invented a dry gelatin-silver photo process suitable for use on flexible media ^[4] .
• In 1878, Edward Maybridge created a chronophotographic image of a galloping horse named “Otsident” with the help of several successive cameras ^[5] .
• In 1884, George Eastman released a roll of negative photographic paper coated with silver gelatin emulsion ^[6] .
• In 1888, the inventor Louis Leprens made the first ever film in the history of Eastman's photographic paper - “ A scene in the garden of Roundhay ”. At the end of the year Leprens shot “ Traffic on the Leeds Bridge ” ^[7] .
• In 1889, Eastman Kodak released the first roll of film on a celluloid basis, which became the prototype of the film ^[6] .
• In 1891, the American inventor Thomas Edison received a patent for a device called " Kinetoscope ", which became the first mass movie camera using perforated film ^{[8] [9]} . May 20 of the same year, the public showed the first film " Dixon 's Greeting ".
• April 14, 1894 on Broadway opened the first "office" ( eng. Kinetoscope Parlor ), in which ten "Kinetoscopes" were installed, intended for paid viewing of short film clips through the eyepiece ^[10] . By June 1, similar facilities opened in Chicago and San Francisco , and on October 17, the first cinema hall appeared outside the United States - in London .
• On February 13, 1895, the Lumiere brothers received a patent for the Cinematograph apparatus , which was the result of the improvement of the Kinetoskop ^[11] . Unlike its predecessor, the new device allowed to show films to a large audience on the screen.

The first public demonstration of the Cinema was held on March 22, 1895 in the hall of the house 44 on Rennes Street in Paris ^[12] . The film “ Workers leaving the Lumiere brothers factory in Lyon ” was shown, which captured the workers leaving the company’s gate at the end of the working day. On December 28 of the same year, the first commercial cinema show “Cinema” ^{[13] [14]} took place in the Indian salon “Grand Café” on Capuchinok Boulevard , 14. It has been shown 10 films lasting about one minute each ^{[15] [16] [17] [18]} . Among other films, the session shows the first comedy film - "The watered irrigator " ^[19] . The income from the first public film show was only 35 francs, but the next day the crowd who wanted to become moviegoers stretched out in a huge queue ^[20] .

The length of the first silent films was 50 feet (just over 15 meters ), taking less than a minute of screen time. Such was the capacity of the standard Edison-Kodak film reel ^[12] . However, the main reason for such a short duration of the first films was the absence of the so-called “ Latama loop ” in the tape drive mechanisms , without which the hopping mechanism began to tear too long a film. The problem was resolved in 1897 by the inventor Woodville Latham ^[21] . Before the advent of the universal standard of perforation and idle blades of the obturator in a film projector , eliminating the instability and flickering of the image, viewers were tired of watching in a few minutes. By 1908, the length had increased to 300 meters, corresponding to 15 minutes at a projection frequency of 16 frames per second. By the beginning of World War I, the duration of most films began to exceed one hour, thanks to the emergence of two-stage technology of film screening ^[22] .

During the days of silent cinema, technical solutions were created, some of which are still in use today. The overwhelming majority of motion pictures were produced on 35 mm film with double-sided perforation and a modern frame pitch of 19 mm. Initially, there were two varieties of this system: "American" and "French." The first, developed by Edison for the " Kinetoskop ", used four perforations of rectangular shape within the frame step, while the European version of the Lumiere brothers was supplied with a single circular perforation ^[14] . In 1909, the Edison system was chosen by the Congress of filmmakers as the global standard ^[23] . Regardless of the type of perforation, the frame occupied the entire width between its rows and its size was always 18 × 24 mm. Silent film became the basis for the classic sound film format , standardized in 1932 ^[24] . The width of the film and the frame pitch have been preserved, which has been reduced to a size of 16 × 22 mm in order to accommodate an optical combined phonogram on the side. Because of this, the “silent” aspect ratio of the screen 1.33: 1 slightly changed to the “academic” 1.375: 1. Currently, the “silent frame” dimensions are used in a variety of the modern cinematic system “ Super-35 ” with a frame pitch of 4 perforations ^[25] .

Edison's first films were shot and demonstrated at a frequency of 30-40 frames per second, since there was no theoretical basis for this parameter ^{[24] [26]} . After the success of the “Cinematograph” of the Lumières, their chosen frequency of cinema and the projection of 16 frames per second gradually became the universal standard for silent cinema. Unlike sound cinema, a change in the frequency of the projection in which is unacceptable, since it causes distortion of sound, silent films could be shown at an arbitrary speed ^[27] . Cinema projectors of the first years did not have a stabilized electric drive , and projectionists, who rotated the mechanism manually, often chose the projection frequency at their discretion, based on the “temperament” of the public ^[28] . The role of the person who rotated the handle of the film projector at the dawn of cinema was considered no less important than the role of the filmmakers: the selection of the projection rate was also considered an art ^[29] . For quieter viewers, a speed of 18–24 frames per second was chosen, and for a “live” public, the film accelerated to 20–30 frames per second. The outlined trend of showing films with increased frequency was explained by commercial considerations of film distributors , who were trying to shorten film shows and increase the “permeability” of the halls. In some cases, the speed of the demonstration reached 50 frames per second, completely distorting the movement on the screen. In Germany, even a special police decree was issued on the inadmissibility of increasing the frequency of projections above the standard ^[28] .

The first silent films were experimental and were intended to demonstrate the viability of the new technology. The plots of the Kinetograf and Cinematograph short videos were primitive and repeated the subject of the zootrop . The catalog of film clips for the Kinetoskop , which numbered 60 titles at the end of 1894, mainly consisted of films about trained animals , acrobats , dances and wrestling ^[30] . For the first few years, the public was content with the fact of “moving photographs”, regardless of their plot, and cinema was viewed as a fair attraction, bringing quick wages. The emergence of professional film industry at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries and the emergence of competition among filmmakers forced the directors to improve the subjects, but the progress did not go too far.

As a result, a whole direction of silent cinema was formed, later called the “comedy of cracks” ^[31] . The corporate reception of such films was the throwing of the cake , which quickly turned into a stamp . The actors were often not required dramatic abilities, but the ability to effectively fall in front of the camera.

The visual and artistic possibilities of silent cinema at the beginning of its development were extremely primitive. The first silent films were shot in one frame without editing and panning . The cameraman installed his machine so that the whole decoration was in the frame. The Fundus system was not yet invented, and a canvas with a gray or brown painted background was attached to a wooden frame ^[32] . At the same time in the lower right corner should necessarily display the brand name of the film studio, glued to the scenery for marking negative ^{[33] [34]} . Characters have always been shot to their full height, without any division into medium , large and general plans . If the actor crossed the designated boundaries marked with planks nailed on the floor, and his legs were cut off by the frame, the double was considered defective, because “a person cannot walk without legs” ^[33] . The lighting of the scenes was also primitive: the first years of filming pavilions, like the photo studio, generally did without lighting fixtures, using daylight passing through the glass roof ^[32] . Often the roof was completely absent, and the “walls” were mounted directly in the courtyard of the studio. The world's first film maker " Black Maria " had a turning structure, focusing on the light of the sun moving through the sky . Artificial illumination was used only to achieve the required exposure and was installed on the camera side, without creating a cut-off pattern ^[35] .

Up to the advent of sound cinema, an orthochromatic film was used that was not sensitive to red light. Panchromatic film, which appeared by the beginning of the 1920s, and is sensitive to the entire visible spectrum, was used little due to its higher cost ^[36] . All this introduced features into the image that were expressed in the distorted transmission of half-tones of color objects, especially of a human face. Without the use of a special make-up, the lips of red were displayed in black, and the iris of the blue eyes turned out to be positive white. Before World War I , there were no professional actors in silent films: workers of theaters , circus and pop were invited to shoot. ^[37] The Soviet cameraman Louis Forestier , who found the formation of silent cinema, wrote ^[38] :

However, the lack of available technology for recording and synchronous playback of sound has become a catalyst for the search for additional opportunities for organizing a dumb visual series. Due to this limitation, a “mute” school of exposing a complex plot was created using editing tools, and a specific kind of pantomime became the basis of the acting. It developed a very special unique style of communication with the audience with the help of facial expressions and gestures . The expressiveness of the movements of some silent film actors can hardly be surpassed even in modern sound films.

One of the stages of film language development was the emergence of intertitles - text inserts that gave explanations of the plot, reproduced replicas of characters, or even commented on what was happening to the audience. They were used as titles of the editing parts, as a substitute for sound speech, as a means of narrating the plot and linking individual plot fragments. In Russia at the beginning of the 20th century there were titling workshops that carried out the manufacture of assembly fragments with intertitles for distributors. Thus, it was possible to save money when purchasing foreign paintings, since the cost of a meter of film with titles, often illiterately translated into Russian, did not differ from the cost of the same segment with an image. At the request of the distributors, the film was delivered with short frames of 1-2 frames with titles in the original language, and Russian titles were printed on the spot. The largest producer of intertitles in pre-revolutionary Russia was the Khanzhonkov Film Factory ^[39] .

Over time, the titles were comprehended as an aesthetically important part of the film: they were specially designed and coordinated with the rest of the material. As the artistic means of silent films expanded, it was also possible to create full-length films without intertitles; This was primarily characteristic of the German “chamber drama,” the most important example of which is Murnau ’s film The Last Man . By the beginning of the 1920s, silent cinema acquired a wide range of artistic means that led to the parallel development of several areas of cinema as art - German film expressionism ( Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau , Fritz Lang , Paul Leni , etc.), the American narrative school ( David Wark Griffith , Thomas Ince, and others) and the Soviet school of documentary film ( Dziga Vertov ).

The aesthetics of silent cinema that had developed by the mid-1920s made it equal among other arts. Thanks to improvements in film equipment, completely new visual techniques, such as large and medium plans , panning , camera movement, and angle shots, have appeared. A cameraman from a technician turned into a full-fledged co-author of film production. The montage became dynamic and acquired its own language, which complicated the narration. Making films was prestigious even for the venerable actors who came to the filming sites along with the directors-innovators. By the end of the decade, film masterpieces were created that had an impact not only on the mute, but also on future sound cinema. These are such paintings as Eisenstein's “ Battleship Potemkin ”, Pudovkin 's “ Mother ” and Griffith's “ Birth of a Nation ”. Attempts to create sound cinema began to be perceived negatively by most filmmakers as a direct threat to cinema art. The owners of film studios resisted the arrival of sound, as it was not without reason that it would strike at the internationalism of silent cinema. American film producers seriously feared the cessation of the export of motion pictures with the arrival of a sound that could drastically reduce Hollywood's revenues ^[41] . Many filmmakers predicted a fall in the artistic level of sound films.

In 1928, Soviet cinematographers Vsevolod Pudovkin , Sergey Eisenstein and Grigory Alexandrov made a “Sound Bid”, warning against sound abuse ^[42] . Nevertheless, the development of technology and the emergence of competition from broadcasting , steadily approximated the advent of sound cinema. The first sound films really demonstrated a serious decline in artistry, mainly due to the complexity of early sound recording and the limitations in editing the phonogram. The imperfection of the technology of synchronous shooting of the first few decades led to the predominance of long dialog editing plans , unthinkable in silent cinema. It was necessary to refuse dynamic installation . The bulkiness of synchronous cameras and sound recording equipment forced us to avoid field shooting, which were imitated in the pavilions with the help of rear projection , invented specifically for sound films ^[43] .

The first sound film, released in wide distribution, was the American film "The Jazz Singer" (The Jazz Singer, 1927) ^[44] . However, the predominant production of silent films continued for at least another year; sound films began to dominate on US screens only in 1929. The first Soviet sound feature film - “Start in life” ( 1931 ). In the USSR, silent films were released until the mid-30s. One of the last silent films was, in particular, "Space Flight" ( 1935 ).

The following films brought special fame to silent films:

К стилистике немого кинематографа обращаются многие современные режиссёры. Например, канадец Гай Мэддин , создатель таких лент как « Самая печальная музыка на свете » (2003) и « Клеймо на мозге » (2006), сделал приёмы дозвукового кинематографа неотъемлемой частью своей творческой манеры ^[45] . В 2007 году заметным кинособытием стала лента « Антенна » аргентинского постановщика Эстебана Сапира , выдержанная в «эстетике немецкого экспрессионизма , французского авангарда и монтажного кино 1920-х» ^[46] . Крупный зрительский и фестивальный успех сопутствовал французской мелодраме « Артист » (2011), поставленной Мишелем Хазанавичусом , который обратился к стилистике раннего Голливуда . ^[47] Фильм получил приз за лучшую мужскую роль на Каннском кинофестивале и пять премий «Оскар» , в том числе за лучший фильм, лучшую режиссуру и лучшую мужскую роль.

• Немое кино (фильм)
• Голливуд (телесериал)
• Кино Европы: Неизвестный Голливуд
• Звуковой кинематограф
• Кинофантастика в эпоху немого кино
• Кинотрест Эдисона
• Диафильм

• Е. М. Голдовский . Глава II. Почему фильмокопии имеют перфорации? // Кинопроекция в вопросах и ответах. — М.,: «Искусство», 1971. — С. 33. — 225 с.

• Е. М. Голдовский . Основы кинотехники / Л. О. Эйсымонт. — М.,: «Искусство», 1965. — 636 с.

• А. Д. Головня . Мастерство кинооператора / И. Н. Владимирцева. — М. : «Искусство», 1965. — 239 с. - 7000 copies

• I. B. Gordiychuk, V. G. Pell. Раздел I. Системы кинематографа // Справочник кинооператора / Н. Н. Жердецкая. — М.,: «Искусство», 1979. — С. 7—67. - 440 s.

• Владимир Левашов. Лекции по истории фотографии / Галина Ельшевская. — 2-е изд.. — М. : «Тримедиа Контент», 2014. — 464 с. — ISBN 978-5-903788-63-7 .

• Жорж Садуль . Всеобщая история кино / В. А. Рязанова. — М.,: «Искусство», 1958. — Т. 1. — 611 с.

• Жорж Садуль . Всеобщая история кино / Б. П. Долынин. — М.,: «Искусство», 1958. — Т. 2. — 523 с.

• Жорж Садуль . Всеобщая история кино / И. В. Беленький. — М.,: «Искусство», 1982. — Т. 4 (второй полутом). — 528 с.

• B. N. Konoplev . Basics of film production / V. S. Bogatova. - 2nd ed .. - M .: "Art", 1975. - 448 p. - 5000 copies

• Dmitry Murenkov. Кинематограф. Искусство и техника (рус.) // «MediaVision» : журнал. — 2011. — № 9 . — С. 59—61 .

• Dmitry Murenkov. Свет в кино (рус.) // «MediaVision» : журнал. — 2013. — Февраль ( № 1/31 ). — С. 60—62 .

• Поллак Питер. Из истории фотографии. — М.,: «Планета», 1983. — С. 71. — 176 с.

• Луи Форестье . Великий немой / Б. Кравченко. — М. : «Госкиноиздат», 1945. — 115 с. - 5000 copies

• Фестиваль немого кино и музыки «Кинемо» (рус.) . ЕвроАфиша. The appeal date is July 7, 2015.