Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative

by Thomas Elsaesser, Adam Barker (Editor)

In the twenty years preceding the First World War, cinema rapidly developed from a fairground curiosity into a major industry and social institution, a source of information and entertainment for millions of people. Only recently have film scholars and historians begun to study these early years of cinema in their own right and not simply as first steps towards the classical narrative cinema we now associate with Hollywood. The essays in this collection trace the fascinating history of how the cinema developed its forms of storytelling and representation and how it evolved into a complex industry with Hollywood rapidly acquiring a dominant role. These issues can be seen to arise from new readings of the so-called pioneers - Melies, Lumiere, Porter, and Griffith - while also suggesting new perspectives on major European filmmakers of the 1910s and 20s. Editor Thomas Elsaesser complements the contributions from leading British, American, and European scholars with introductory essays of his own that provide a comprehensive overview of the field. The volume is the most authoritative survey to date of a key area of contemporary film research, invaluable to historians as well as to students of cinema.

Genres: Film, Criticism

432 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1990

About the author

Thomas Elsaesser was a German film historian and professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Amsterdam.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Voluminous edited tome that re-evaluates how early cinema is conceptualized by scholars. Some of the biggest names (Staiger, Gunning, Musser, etc.) of film studies are included and each make important (and sometimes contradictory) contributions to the argument. The book focuses almost exclusively on pre-Griffith cinema (except for half of the third section, but even then it is pre-Birth of A Nation Griffith) and examines numerous factors of the medium/industry from 1895-1915. Personally, I find discussions of the formal aspects of film a bit boring, but the economic/industrial analysis is top-notch. While it can be a slog to make it through 400+ pages, if your knowledge of early silent cinema is near zero (like me) then you should probably pick this up.

[Lyric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Text for History of Cinema PSU Winter 2013. Awful book. The girls on the cover match how I felt while reading it.