It would be fair to say that, generally speaking, I’m not much of a movie person. While others can quote entire scenes from their favourite films or debate the merits of different directors, I’ve always been more likely to reach for a book than a remote. I read a lot, and I even write a newsletter about books, as well as a column right here at Global Comment on book adaptations.
Recently though, I’ve begun to wonder what I’ve been missing.
Cinema is often called the defining art form of the 20th century, and I’m tired of never having seen the films my friends talk about. The last time I managed to watch films regularly was in the 1990s: every Saturday my family would stock up on snacks and head to the video shop (remember those?) to pick a film for our family movie night.
This means that while my knowledge of 1990s thrillers is pretty respectable, I’m behind on everything else.
This new series of columns is an attempt to fill the gaps in my knowledge, starting from the very beginning.
I’m going to learn about cinema history more or less chronologically, beginning with those first flickering images that astonished audiences in the 1890s and working my way forward through the decades, with the occasional diversion into specific genres or movements where it’s relevant.
My goal isn’t to become a film scholar, but to understand how cinema evolved, how it works as an art form, and to learn how to appreciate the films I’m watching.
Maybe by the end of the series I’ll be a dedicated film buff, and maybe I’ll still prefer a book, but either way I’m sure I’ll have picked up plenty of interesting things along the way.
While I can’t promise expert analysis, I can offer the perspective of someone discovering these movies for the first time. My hope is that a fresh pair of eyes will reveal something worth seeing.
So, for my first cinematic adventure, I went all the way back to the beginning of movie history and watched three seminal early films, each of which does something very different.
It was fascinating to see these first forays into moving pictures and consider how revolutionary they must have been at the time, especially compared to the incredible special effects we take for granted these days.
But I’m getting ahead of myself: let’s take a look at this month’s films.
How it all begins: Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory by the Lumière Brothers, 1895
Picture this: it’s December 1895, and the setting is the Grand Café in Paris. The audience have paid one franc each to see something called the Cinématographe. The lights dim, a machine whirs into life, and suddenly – seemingly impossibly – there are moving people projected on a white sheet. Workers stream out of factory doors, clothes blowing in the breeze, their shadows shifting on the pavement.
The film is simple in the extreme – forty-six seconds of people leaving work: no story, no drama, no special effects. A dog runs in and out of the crowd; there’s a man on a bicycle. I can’t help but think how uncomfortable their clothes must be for factory work (or, looking at the women’s dresses, for anything).
It should be underwhelming, especially to modern eyes, but it’s well-executed. The camera is perfectly positioned, the composition is thoughtful, and there’s something calming about watching people milling around in black and white.
Like many of us, I had heard reports of early cinema audiences gasping and ducking when they first saw a train coming towards them on the screen.
Today, we’re so accustomed to film – so much so that we casually make videos on our phones, something that was unimaginable when I was a child – that it’s hard to imagine the shock of seeing a moving picture for the first time.
But watching this short, looping film of people leaving work, I can feel myself grasping a little bit of the amazement that that first audience must have felt.
A touch of magic: A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès, 1902
If the Lumière brothers were intent on capturing the world as it is, Georges Méliès was more interested in how cinema could show us the world of the imagination. Just seven years after that first screening in Paris, Méliès released A Trip to the Moon, and cinema transformed from a documentary tool into a magic trick.
Watching Méliès after the Lumières is quite the contrast. Méliès was a professional magician before he became a filmmaker, and there’s a sense of fun and magic which shines through the whole film. He pioneered techniques that seem almost quaint now but were mind-bending then: multiple exposures, stop-motion, pyrotechnics, elaborate dissolves. It must have felt truly magical to the audience at the time.
It also feels much more theatrical – the sets and props are clearly handmade, the actors move acrobatically, and the costumes are beautiful.
There’s a real charm to the whole film. Watching it feels almost like an event, a little like going to the theatre and seeing a play.
The narrative follows a three-act structure: first the astronomers decide to travel to the moon, then they arrive and have to overcome challenges (aliens!) before returning home triumphant.
Rather than documentary, it’s storytelling: a hero’s journey, and the template for the many adventure movies that came later.
There’s a gentle humour to the film which is expressed effectively despite the lack of sound: this is a film that’s exuberant and full of joy. The famous image of the rocket lodged in the Moon’s eye is something I’d seen before, but I had no idea where it came from or what its context was, and it was a fun touch to see here.
America makes the first Western: The Great Train Robbery by Edwin S. Porter, 1903
By 1903, American filmmakers were getting involved and creating the grammar that future filmmakers would use to tell their own stories. The Great Train Robbery is the first Western, the first heist movie and the first crime movie all rolled into one. It tells the story of some bandits who rob a mail train and its passengers before being chased down by a posse from the local town.
Porter pushed both technique and narrative further than the Lumières or Méliès: there’s a clear plot, with action and suspense told across multiple locations and scenes, as well as simultaneous action in two different places, allowing Porter to build suspense through editing, not just through action.
There’s also a marked shift in camera technique: rather than a static camera that mimics a stage, here there’s more depth, and the movements feel more natural as a result.
In the final shot, one of the bandits breaks the fourth wall by pointing his gun directly at the camera and shooting, which must have felt shockingly immersive at the time.
The Great Train Robbery feels to me like the moment when cinema became entertainment, rather than documentary or theatre. The pacing feels more modern and although it’s a short film, it’s action-packed.
This month’s takeaways
I loved how different each of these films was: documentary, magical and theatrical, and entertaining. That’s a lot of development for a brand-new medium in a relatively short amount of time.
It’s also fascinating to see how much of what these three films are doing is still so familiar to us today, not only in cinema but in other art forms as well, whether it’s the artwork of A Trip To The Moon inspiring 1990s album covers or the visual language of The Great Train Robbery showing up in prestige TV over one hundred years later.
It feels remarkable to me that these films, which are so old, are still influencing us today – although perhaps it shouldn’t. After all, there are plenty of books being written now which are influenced by much older works – centuries older – so maybe it’s not such a surprise that cinema should do the same.
One thing I will be reflecting on further is how these three films prove the essential appeal of cinema as an art form: they’re full of vision, creativity and humour, even with the most basic technology.
Clearly, cinema comes from a place of human imagination and our deep desire to share stories. From workers leaving a factory, to astronauts visiting the moon, to bandits robbing trains, these early filmmakers were already exploring cinema’s infinite possibilities.
Join me next month when I’ll be moving on to the era of silent films. I can’t wait to see how filmmakers used this new medium to tell the stories that people cared about.
If there’s a favourite silent film you think I should include in my viewing, you can let us know via our social channels.
Image: jeffysalim