A Brief History of Film

Summary

This video delves into the fascinating evolution of film, tracing its journey from the first moving images captured by Eadweard Muybridge in the 1870s to the cinematic revolution of streaming services today. The narrative begins with the development of early films into narrative storytelling, highlighting key contributions such as the silent era's static wide shots, Soviet montage, and the emergence of 'talkies'. The video covers the Golden Age of Hollywood and its subsequent decline due to monopolistic practices, the rise of auteur theory, the impact of the French New Wave, and the vibrant New Hollywood movement of the 60s and 70s. As CGI and blockbuster films dominated the latter half of the 20th century, the video concludes by pondering the implications of streaming services on the future of film, questioning whether this is a return to monopoly-like conditions.

Highlights

• Eadweard Muybridge's horse experiment created the first moving image. 🐴
• The 1920s Soviet montage theory revolutionized film editing. 🧩
• The introduction of sound in film ('talkies') reshaped Hollywood. 🎙️
• The fall of Hollywood's studio system opened doors for new filmmakers. 🚪
• The French New Wave challenged traditional film-making norms. 🎨
• Blockbuster films and CGI effects became mainstream in the 80s. 🚀
• Streaming services could lead to modern-day monopolies. 🌐

Key Takeaways

• Film evolved from simple moving images to complex narratives. 🎥
• Eadweard Muybridge's horse images were revolutionary. 🐎
• Soviet montage transformed film editing and narrative. ✂️
• Hollywood's Golden Age was a film-making powerhouse. 🌟
• The French New Wave and auteur theory reshaped cinema. 🇫🇷
• New Hollywood brought innovative directors to prominence. 🎬
• CGI revolutionized storytelling and action sequences. 💥
• Streaming services may echo past studio monopolies. 📡

Overview

Step into the world of cinema with a journey that began in the 1870s, when Eadweard Muybridge accidentally stumbled onto the moving image with his horse pictures. From this innocent beginning, film matured into a narrative art form, with early pioneers like Thomas Edison and the Lumiere brothers experimenting with this new medium. Eventually, films evolved from mere spectacle to engaging stories, especially as Soviet montage theory began to revolutionize how stories were told on screen.

In Hollywood, the era of glamorous movie stars and opulent productions defined the Golden Age. However, as the U.S. government broke up the monopolistic studio system, a new chapter in film history was written. The French New Wave brought a fresh perspective, emphasizing directors as auteurs. This inspired a revolution stateside, as the New Hollywood movement welcomed iconic directors such as Scorsese and Spielberg, who redefined the cinematic landscape with bold, compelling narratives.

The evolution continued with the advent of CGI, bringing about an age of spectacular special effects and high-octane blockbusters. However, with the rise of streaming platforms, echoes of past monopolies present new challenges and questions about the future of film consumption. Are we stepping back into control-driven distribution, reminiscent of early Hollywood? As film continues to evolve, one thing is certain: the journey of cinema is as dynamic and unpredictable as ever.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The introduction chapter starts with a simple yet pivotal question about the development of film from its early stages to the modern era, sparking curiosity and setting the stage for an exploration into the evolution of film. The chapter aims to engage the audience by highlighting the progression and changes in film over time.
• 00:30 - 02:00: Birth of the Moving Image This chapter delves into the history of film, starting from the 1870s with the emergence of the moving image. It focuses on the pivotal work of Eadweard Muybridge, an English-American photographer, who, in 1878, was commissioned to photograph a horse. This was a crucial development in the birth of the moving image.
• 02:00 - 03:30: Early Narrative Films In 'Early Narrative Films,' the chapter discusses the groundbreaking work of Eadweard Muybridge in the field of moving images. Initially, his work was part of a scientific study to analyze the gait of a galloping horse, specifically to determine if all four of the horse's feet leave the ground simultaneously at speed. During this process, Muybridge inadvertently created what is considered the first moving image. His discovery laid the foundational stone for future developments in filmmaking as he projected a series of images in rapid succession, effectively bringing them to life as moving pictures.
• 03:30 - 05:30: Silent Film and Comedy The chapter "Silent Film and Comedy" starts by discussing the origins of film, highlighting "The Horse in Motion" as the first-ever movie, which sparked interest in motion pictures globally. It notes the role of inventors and early filmmakers like Thomas Edison and the Lumiere brothers, who were pioneers in utilizing and advancing this new technology.
• 05:30 - 07:00: Soviet Montage Theory In the early 20th century, films began to evolve into narrative forms, moving beyond mere sideshow attractions to become artistic mediums akin to books or theater. This era saw the emergence of complex films with sophisticated storylines and detailed characters, pioneered by filmmakers like Georges Méliès in France and Edwin S. Porter in the USA.
• 07:00 - 09:00: Sound in Film The chapter 'Sound in Film' explores the use of sound in early cinema, highlighting that many early movies such as 'A Trip to the Moon,' 'The Great Train Robbery,' and 'The Birth of a Nation' had a static form. During the progression of film in the 1910s and 1920s, a conspicuous artistic trend in film form began to emerge. However, despite the static and uniform nature of early films, there were notable exceptions. The transcript hints at discussing how the introduction of sound changed this dynamic and contributed to the evolution of film as an art form.
• 09:00 - 15:00: Golden Age of Hollywood The chapter titled 'Golden Age of Hollywood' discusses the film style prevalent during this era, highlighting its performative nature. It particularly emphasizes the use of static wide shots, which were commonplace and favored in filmmaking at the time. The narrative explains that while this style restricted close-ups and shot reverse shots, it excelled in enhancing particular genres, such as comedy. The chapter further illustrates how iconic artists of the 1920s, like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, capitalized on this filmmaking technique, leveraging the static wide shot to create effective comedic performances.
• 15:00 - 18:00: French New Wave and Auteur Theory The chapter discusses the influence of French New Wave and Auteur Theory in cinema. It touches on the innovative approaches and contributions of filmmakers in America and Western Europe, before focusing on a significant transformation taking place in Soviet Russia. Despite seeming unlikely, Soviet Russia is highlighted as a crucial influencer in film history, particularly due to its contributions to the concept of film montage.
• 18:00 - 23:00: End of Studio System and New Hollywood Movement The chapter titled 'End of Studio System and New Hollywood Movement' discusses the influence of Soviet montage theory, particularly the ideas presented by Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein in the 1920s. Eisenstein's groundbreaking essay on film editing outlined five methods of montage, highlighting how editing techniques could convey more than just the narrative, effectively shaping the future of media. His description of compiling shots to achieve various effects, such as metric, rhythmic, and tonal outcomes, played a significant role in the evolution of filmmaking.
• 23:00 - 30:00: Rise of Blockbusters and CGI The chapter titled 'Rise of Blockbusters and CGI' illustrates the significance of film techniques like cutting and montage in creating complex ideas. It references Eisenstein's emphasis on the importance of editing in films, which can be as influential as the images themselves. An example used is the Kuleshov effect, a concept developed by Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1920s, demonstrating how viewers derive more meaning from the interaction of images than from a single image in isolation. This chapter sets the foundation for understanding the evolution of blockbuster films and the role of CGI in enhancing cinematic storytelling.
• 30:00 - 35:30: Modern Cinema and Concerns for the Future In this chapter titled "Modern Cinema and Concerns for the Future", an experiment conducted by the Moscow Film School is discussed. The experiment involved using the same shot of an expressionless man's face, juxtaposed with different following images: a bowl of soup, a girl in a coffin, and an attractive woman. Each combination was used to elicit different emotional interpretations from the audience, demonstrating how juxtaposition in film can influence the perceived emotions and narrative meaning.
• 35:30 - 37:00: Conclusion The chapter 'Conclusion' discusses a filmmaking revelation where the emotional response of an audience can be influenced by juxtaposing facial expressions with different contextual images. In this example, a man's unchanging face is shown alongside various scenes: a bowl of soup, a girl in a coffin, and an attractive woman. The audience interpreted the man's emotions differently based on the scenes paired with his expression, believing he felt hungry, sad, and lost respectively. This highlighted that the audience could infer emotions without explicit theatrical expressions, showcasing a significant storytelling tool in film.

A Brief History of Film Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] film I'd like to ask a question it may seem like a simple question but I think it's a question that the average moviegoer doesn't think too much about how did film develop from this into this let's find out hello welcome to film
• 00:30 - 01:00 thoughts project a channel dedicated to cinema my name is Rudy and today we're bringing you a brief history of film let's get into it to start we have to go back the 1870s and the birth of the Moving Image in 1878 Eadweard Muybridge an english american photographer was commissioned to take some pictures of a horse what he
• 01:00 - 01:30 produced was this the images were taken for a scientific study into the gait analysis of a galloping horse the participants were interested in whether or not all four horses feet come off the ground at once while moving at speed little did Eadweard Muybridge know he had just created what would widely become known as the first ever moving image shortly after the images were taken Muybridge discovered that while projecting the images in quick
• 01:30 - 02:00 succession this happened what you're seeing is the horse in motion widely considered to be the first ever movie as you can imagine this got people interested for the next few years inventors from all over the world jumped on this newfound technology filmmakers such as Thomas Edison yes that Thomas Edison and the Lumiere brothers were seen as pioneers in this new technology
• 02:00 - 02:30 the early 20th century is when films began to take on a more narrative role with filmmakers such as George Melly air in France and Edwin s Porter in the USA more complex films with refined storylines and detailed characters began to emerge movies were evolving from sideshow attractions in to artistic narrative mediums comparable to books or theater notable movies of the early 20th
• 02:30 - 03:00 century include a trip to the moon the Great Train Robbery and the birth of a nation um yeah that last one was controversial as film progressed throughout the 1910s and into the 1920s one artistic trend began to emerge let me ask you can you see a similarity between all of these early movies it's all very static in terms of film form the cinema became fairly OneNote although there were some exceptions in general the filmmakers would simply set
• 03:00 - 03:30 up a static wide shot and the characters would perform in front of the camera few close-ups no shot reverse shot definitely none of this in a strange way film was becoming more of a silent performative artform this style of static wide shot however was perfect for one thing comedy in the 1920s artists such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin were taking full advantage of this filmmaking style
• 03:30 - 04:00 pushing the limits of performative comedy in cinema perfecting the visual gap while these artists were doing great things in America and Western Europe something big was happening elsewhere something that would change film form forever Soviet Russia it may seem unlikely but Soviet Russia was one of the most important players in film history he's a pretty important term in film montage or
• 04:00 - 04:30 more specifically Soviet montage theory what is this well during the 1920s a Russian filmmaker named Serge a Eisenstein wrote a groundbreaking essay in which he outlined five methods of montage Eisenstein's ideas about how film editing techniques could be used to convey far more than the narrative helped to shape the future of the media he describes the different ways that shots could be compiled to achieve various outcomes metric rhythmic tonal /
• 04:30 - 05:00 tonal and intellectual what does this mean well put simply the idea is that a combination of connected images cut together can create complex ideas more effectively than the content of the shot themselves Eisenstein argued that cutting in film is just as important as the images here's an example the Kuleshov effect in the 1920s Kuleshov a Russian filmmaker film theorist and co-founder of the
• 05:00 - 05:30 Moscow Film School created an experiment he took a shot of an expressionless man's face followed by a shot of a bowl of soup he took the exact same shot of the expressionless man's face followed by a shot of a girl in a coffin he then took the same shot of the man for a third time followed by a shot of an attractive woman once the audience had viewed the film he asked them what they thought the man was feeling during each section interestingly when they saw the bowl of soup juxtaposed with the
• 05:30 - 06:00 man's face they believed he felt hungry when they saw the girl in the cotton juxtaposed with the man's face they believed he felt sad and when they saw the attractive woman juxtaposed with the shot of the man's face they believed he felt lost of course the man did not change his expression at all during the film this was a revelation in filmmaking terms the audience did not have to be told that the man was feeling sad the man did not have to act sad theatrically in front of
• 06:00 - 06:30 a still wide shot for the audience to understand the emotion they simply had to be presented with images cut together in specific ways and the audience can fill in the gaps themselves this added an entirely new layer to filmmaking film Grammer had been created but how far could you push this idea can you create entire stories with complex emotional themes simply through editing yes that's
• 06:30 - 07:00 it sir ji zhesan yes you could and so Soviet montage was born while American films were looking like this in the 1920s Eisenstein was making films that looked like this [Music] notice the fast-paced editing the more diverse use of shot selection close-ups
• 07:00 - 07:30 panning shots tracking shots high angles low angles movement overly theatrical performances being replaced with gritty realism all of this culminating into something far more intense than your average American motion picture at the time looks quite modern doesn't it let's go back to the USA for now while the Soviets were busy creating film grammar as we know it today the Americans were busy creating something else in 1927 the jazz singer
• 07:30 - 08:00 became the first feature-length motion picture to incorporate synchronized music singing and dialogue at the time the term talkies were coined to describe such films the American film industry never looked back sound became the new
• 08:00 - 08:30 norm sound in film it sparked a huge growth in the American film industry sound recording required large pieces of equipment on set at all times this push to film productions indoors into sound stages and production companies were built in gigantic studios on the west coast of America the studio system was born by the beginning of the 1930s when most all large-scale motion picture productions were being made by what was
• 08:30 - 09:00 known as the big five MGM Paramount Pictures RKO Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox this brought in a new era which many refer to as the Golden Age of Hollywood an era that lasted until the 1960s this is when the American film industry grew into a true global phenomenon with enormous conglomerate companies powering the engines Hollywood became a machine churning out 400 motion pictures a year with new
• 09:00 - 09:30 is being seen by 19 million of Americans per week here's a list of some of the things that the golden era of Hollywood brought us the first movie stars were born with actors and actresses such as Greta Garbo Marlon Brando Audrey Hepburn John Wayne Humphrey Bogart Katharine Hepburn James Dean Marilyn Monroe James Stewart Judy Garland Laurence Olivier Rita Hayworth the list goes on some filmmakers took the low key lighting stylistics of German Expressionism and incorporated it into their dark gritty detective dramas with movies like
• 09:30 - 10:00 The Maltese Falcon Double Indemnity and The Big Sleep film noir was born Orson Welles is incredibly ambitious groundbreaking masterpiece Citizen Kane propelled cinema to new heights giving people a fresh idea of what a motion picture could be color film became commonplace adding a whole new layer to the art form all of a sudden filmmakers were figuring out the psychological effect that different hues had on their audiences color theory was born Alfred
• 10:00 - 10:30 Hitchcock took the inventiveness of Soviet montage theory added his own artistic flair and genius to direct some of the greatest films of all time Hitchcock created filmmaking techniques that we see in almost every motion picture made today he understood film like no other and solidified himself as one of the most significant figures in filmmaking history seriously if I could recommend one thing to anyone who's interested in studying film direction it would be study
• 10:30 - 11:00 Hitchcock simultaneously during this period there was an emergence of filmmakers from Asia Japan became a filmmaking hotspot with great directors such as Akira Kurosawa and yasujiro ozu creating their own masterpieces that would go on to be studied for decades to come in short the Golden Age really was a golden age a lot of things happened a lot of progress was made but it wouldn't last forever something was wrong with the American studio system let me explain here's a quick rundown of how the studio system works these huge movie
• 11:00 - 11:30 studios were enormous conglomerates that had a complete monopoly over the entire movie industry this basically meant that they had control over not only the production movies but over the movie theaters - the way they did this was by something known as block looking Studios had the ability to pick up movie theaters to exclusively show a whole year of their productions in other words if you were a small movie theater and you wanted to screen The Wizard of Oz you had to sign a deal with
• 11:30 - 12:00 MGM the production studio to show every single movie that MGM made that year including all the mediocre B movies that would be shown in theaters before screening the a-list movies this monopoly over distribution and exhibition created a business model for the studio's the technique was to only make a small amount of attractive high production in ælis movies a year but make hundreds and hundreds of mediocre low production B list movies to be sold alongside to cover the cost of the
• 12:00 - 12:30 a-list productions and make a profit as this business model grew money came pouring in over the decades so this was not sustainable we'll get back to this in a moment meanwhile France in the late 1950s something was happening back in 1948 a French film critic and director named alexandre astruc had an epiphany he decided to publish his ideas in a manifesto entitled the birth of a new avant-garde the camera Stielow possibly the most influential piece of writing in
• 12:30 - 13:00 all of film theory you see in Hollywood at this time the perceived masterminds of a motion picture was whoever was in charge of the money the producers the directors of films were not seen as the artistic creators that they are today film directing for the most part was seen as nothing more than a technical job to be done behind closed doors in fact most studio directors were not well known at all alexandre astruc rejected this astrick argued that the true creator of a film was in fact the
• 13:00 - 13:30 director in his manifesto he famously writes Direction is no longer a means of illustrating or presenting a scene but a true act of writing the filmmaker / author writes with his camera as a writer writes with hen the camera steelo literally translates to the camera pen astrick writes with Citizen Kane be satisfactory in any other form than that given to it by Orson Welles this manifesto was the birth of a new filmmaking theory known
• 13:30 - 14:00 as author theory the crux of the argument being that film directors are true artists and not just technicians and their work should be recognized this seemingly simple idea despite an important turning point in French filmmaking an artistic movement emerged known as the French new-wave by the late 1950s filmmakers in France were putting these ideas into action the two most prominent figures in the French new-wave became Francois Truffaut and jean-luc
• 14:00 - 14:30 Godard directors were exercising that artistry breaking filmmaking rules that had been commonplace for decades they were defining new techniques one of the most well-known being the jump cut as you can see here granted a lot of these techniques were pure experimentation but within the experimentation emerged a wealth of new ideas these movies were the breath of fresh air that the art form needed something was changing and the American studios were taking notice meanwhile back in Hollywood remember
• 14:30 - 15:00 that block booking monopolizing business model that big studios were using yeah that's no longer a thing the United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in what was known as the Paramount case is quite complicated but essentially this outright and block booking by big Hollywood Studios deeming it to be illegally monopolistic this sends shockwaves through the American film industry with no block booking their entire business model had to change long story short the studio system kind
• 15:00 - 15:30 of lingered on for a few years after the lawsuit but after a few big deals were signed eventually the studio system fell by the 1960s the golden era of Hollywood had come to an end most actors and filmmakers became freelance workers not attached to studio contract studios found themselves in new territory Hollywood was losing money audiences had changed the baby boomer generation was coming of age young people were becoming the main demographic of film goers and
• 15:30 - 16:00 they weren't interested in classical Hollywood these were affluent college-educated young people interested in things like European arthouse films they enjoyed the movies of the French New Wave they loved the so-called spaghetti westerns coming from Italy and Japanese cinema was making his mark in the US the market had changed how do we accommodate this new young demographic ask the studio's how can we make money with no block booking it was a time of desperation for the film industry and in times of desperation risks are taken and
• 16:00 - 16:30 that's exactly what the studio's did they took a risk Hollywood knew that their audience had changed and they also knew there was a new generation of college-educated filmmakers fresh out of film school who had studied the lights of foreign cinema ie the French new-wave the studio's concluded that they didn't quite understand their new audience in their demands so why not hire filmmakers who do enter the new Hollywood movement this was a period that started in the mid 1960s in which Hollywood began hiring a
• 16:30 - 17:00 brand new generation of young filmmakers heard of any of these Martin Scorsese Steven Spielberg Francis Ford Coppola Brian De Palma Stanley Kubrick John Cassavetes Terrence Malick Bonnie and Clyde's the Graduate Easy Rider in the heat of the night Chinatown the Godfather taxi driver Jaws Apocalypse Now The Exorcist 2001 a Space Odyssey don't Day Afternoon Annie Hall The Shining even Star Wars all products of the new Hollywood movement these were highly talented
• 17:00 - 17:30 students of film who were in exactly the right place at the right time and they make great movies Scorsese brought socially realistic character studies to the American screen with movies like Raging Bull and taxi driver Spielberg took thrilling tales of horror action and mystery to new heights with movies such as jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind these huge successes would bring rise to the modern-day blockbuster the new Hollywood movement is widely regarded to have come to an end by the early 80s but the
• 17:30 - 18:00 influence lives on to the present day in the 80s new film makers came to prominence movies like Blade Runner aliens Star Wars Terminator and even Back to the Future sparked a researchers in the science-fiction genre as special-effects evolved large-scale action sequences came to be much more commonplace this actually became almost comical in some aspects almost every blockbuster at this point just had to have explosions in the early 90s computer-generated imagery or CGI became much more prominent with movies such as
• 18:00 - 18:30 Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park laying the foundations for the CGI spectacle movies that would emerge later in the 2000s new alternative indie filmmakers such as Paul Thomas Anderson the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino came onto the scene creating character driven movies with unique storylines and of course of cool soundtracks that gave audiences an interesting alternative to the action sci-fi blockbusters of Hollywood in 1998 Steven Spielberg rejected 80s style action and replaced
• 18:30 - 19:00 it with the gritty realism of war in Saving Private Ryan this was a pivotal point that helped change how action was shot in film inspiring the action realism movement of the 2000s and into the present day in 1999 The Matrix marked the end of an era it was the culmination of everything that had emerged in American cinema in the 80's 90's a high budget blockbuster sci-fi movie with large-scale CGI action sequences taking influence from Asian
• 19:00 - 19:30 and European cinema a cool soundtrack and of course explosions in the 2000s CGI continued to find his footing with some great results and not-so-great results CGI capabilities gave rise to superhero movies becoming the new American movie genre Alejandro Inarritu Alfonso Cuaron and Emmanuel Lubezki became an interesting group of Mexican filmmakers creating a new movement of the ultra
• 19:30 - 20:00 long camera shot filmmaking style with movies such as gravity birdman the revenant roma and 1917 in 2020 bong joon-ho made history with his film parasite becoming the first foreign language film to win Best Picture at the Oscars and that's it that brings us to the present day 2020 [Music]
• 20:00 - 20:30 so what's the future of film I don't know I think it's probably got something to do with streaming services and the internet although there's something that slightly concerns me you see if you go to Google right now and you want to watch say the Irishmen you'll notice the only possible way to watch this film is through a certain streaming service you
• 20:30 - 21:00 cannot purchase it you cannot download it now this might change but right now this is a movie that's been produced by the streaming service and now it's being exclusively exhibited by this streaming service and the only possible way to watch it is by paying monthly for all other productions from this same streaming service isn't this just a modern-day equivalent of block booking isn't this the same thing that studios
• 21:00 - 21:30 were doing in the golden era of Hollywood if you want to watch our movie you have to buy all of our movies is this a path that's going to lead us to another Hollywood monopoly let's hope not hey guys thanks for watching a film thought project is a brand new YouTube channel that we'll be posting videos on film Theory film history and general fund discussion so if you enjoyed this video please give it a like and
• 21:30 - 22:00 subscribe I'm new to this so it's really gonna help out see you soon [Music]