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The film was born at the end of 19. It is the product of modern science and technology and a revolution in the history of human civilization. The invention of printing had a revolutionary influence on writing, but it did not change the essence of prose and poetry. The influence of new musical instruments on music is more complicated, but the change of technology has not produced a new concept about music art. The phonograph makes millions of listeners hear the recorded sound, but the performance is still the same.
Perspective makes it possible for artists to create the illusion of three-dimensional space, but it still can't express movement. But the birth of film, as a "supplement to natural creation, not a substitute", finally restored the spatial form of material reality. Thus, human beings have once again gained a brand-new experience of perceiving the world and a brand-new way of thinking in images.
(1) Howard Lawson's film creation process, page 3.
(2) What is Bazin's movie? , page 14.
As people realize, "1the junction of the 9th century and the 20th century is a huge fault zone. In front of this fault zone, history is a mysterious, elusive, confusing and indescribable thing; Behind this fault zone, history is kind and transparent, tangible and indisputable. "
Section 1 The Origin of Movies
"The prehistory of film is almost as long as its history" (2). As a product of modern science and technology, the birth of film has indeed experienced a long experimental process by many scientists, inventors and even imitators in European countries. Their scientific exploration and experiment on sports optical illusion can be traced back to the beginning of19th century. However, the understanding and application of "light and shadow theory" can be traced back to China more than 2,000 years ago. According to written records, in the 5th century BC, Mozi put forward the theory that "light dies when it reaches the scene (shadow)", which is the earliest and most scientific contribution of human beings to the "optical theory". The "Lantern Shadow Play", which originated in the period of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty and spread widely after Tang and Song Dynasties, is the earliest and simplest application and practice of "Light Theory". /kloc-in the 3rd century, "lantern shadow play" spread to the Middle East, Europe, Southeast Asia and other places, resulting in vivid and touching visual games such as "slide show" and "carousel". Movies originated from these visual entertainment games. As for the scientific, technical and physical principles on which the invention of movies is based, there are mainly the following three aspects.
(2) the encyclopedia Britannica, film history, the first sentence.
First, visual retention.
The ancients found that a burning charcoal turned into a fire belt when it was waved. However, this visual phenomenon was associated with the invention of movies in the19th century. 1829, Joseph Prato, a famous Belgian physicist, stared at the strong sunlight for a long time in order to further investigate the tolerance limit of human eyes to light and the time for objects to stay, resulting in blindness. But he found that the shadow of the sun was deeply imprinted in his eyes. He finally discovered the principle of "visual retention". That is, when the object in front of people is removed, the image reflected by the object on the retina will not disappear immediately, but will remain for a short time. Experiments show that the retention time of images is generally 0. 1-0.4 seconds. At the same time, the principle of "Faraday wheel" and the visual study of the rotation of the picture "magic disk" have been adopted in physics textbooks and physics laboratories in Europe. They showed human beings that the physiological function of human vision can combine a series of independent pictures into a continuous mobile video. 19 In 1930s, visual toys such as stunt wheels, walking wheels, rotating wheels, movable mirrors and stroboscope appeared one after another. Its basic principle is similar, that is, draw a series of images on a rotatable and movable video disc. When the video disc rotates, those unremarkable images move and come alive. Since then, the Austrian combined the slide show with the movable video disc, so that the still picture was projected on the screen, and the movable slide show was made, forming the early animation. However, in the 1960s, film theorists and educators raised new questions about "visual stagnation". They found that all the action phenomena on the screen were actually jumping and incoherent, but the audience realized that it was a unified and complete action sequence. This proves that what really works is not "visual retention" but "psychological identity".
Second, photography.
Photography also originated in Europe in the19th century. 1839, Daguerre, a Frenchman, fixed the image permanently by chemical method according to the pinhole imaging principle in painting after the Renaissance, resulting in "Daguerre Photography". However, people can't be satisfied with static, exquisite and single photos in front of the mechanical principle and the consciousness of optical illusion of movable video discs, but fantasize that one day they can be connected with each other and faithfully copy the physical reality of image action and natural space. 1872, photographer Edward Curtrich was the first to apply "photography" to continuous shooting. In five years, he used many cameras to shoot a running horse continuously, which was successful in 1878. The talented photographer arranged 24 cameras in a row. When the horse ran by, the shutter of the camera opened, and the instantaneous posture of horseshoe and flying was photographed in turn. For this reason, Edward Umbridge obtained the patent of "Method and Device for Shooting Moving Objects". 1882, French men developed a "photographic gun" that can shoot continuously by using the intermittent principle of revolvers. Later, he invented the film continuous camera. Finally, a camera began to use a group of cameras instead of curtains to shoot moving objects. In Europe, scientists and inventors from many countries also developed different types of cameras during this period. Among them is Thomas of the United States. Edison and his mechanic Dixon invented the traction method of punching holes on both sides of the film in order to make the film move at the same interval in the camera, which solved the technical problem of mechanical transmission. The "photography" of "mobile photography" is completed.
Third, projection
1888, emile reynaud, a Frenchman, invented the "optical film machine", and people began to see active movies for a few minutes on the curtain, such as Poor Pierrot and Next to the Dressing Room. But the images projected on the curtain are all painted by Renault himself, which is only an early animation screening, which is far from the real movie. 1894, Edison's "film mirror" came out. This is a rectangular cabinet box with a film inside, which can continuously show 50 feet of film and a 2.5 mm lens outside. The feature of this kind of "movie mirror" is that it can only be seen by one person. Edison believes that only when every curious customer watches movies on the movie machine alone can he make more money. Therefore, he refused to show the film. This is obviously a mistake. A year later, "1895 was a year of amazing progress in projection technology. In September of the same year, Thomas Ahmad showed pictures of activities at the Cotton Expo in Atlanta, Georgia. L 65438+ October, the largest. Sk Ladanov's film was shown in Winter Garden in Berlin. " (1) "Projection" became the goal that people pursued in this period. However, among all the projection technologies, only the "Movable Film Machine" invented by Lumiere Brothers has been successful. First, it is a machine that can shoot and show Cellu films; Second, the cost and weight of the machine are much lower than that of inventors such as Edison; Thirdly, in terms of speed, Edison's Movie Mirror is a frame of L/48 seconds, while Lumiere's Moving Movie Machine is a frame of L/ 16 seconds, which is closer to the normal speed of 1/24 seconds. On the last two days of 1895, 18, on February 28th, the Lumiere brothers released his movie for the first time in the big coffee shop at No.4, Avenue Capuson, Paris. This day not only marks the completion of "projection", but also marks the real birth of the film.
(1) Howard Lawson's film creation process, page 5.
It is no accident that the film was born at the end of 19, which is closely related to the development of modern scientific concepts. In the era of "Relativity and quantum mechanics constitute the foundation of modern physics, which leads people to have a new concept of the interaction between time, space, matter and motion", scientists and inventors in the prehistory of movies persistently pursued and created the visual illusion of motion, an image media language that conforms to this new scientific concept. Science acts on art, which embodies the new concept of modern human thinking in images. From the very beginning, this concept determines that film art is essentially different from traditional art forms in terms of media attributes and language methods. At the same time, as far as the history of art development is concerned, the film finally realized the aesthetic pursuit of the mummy "plot" team by human art and the realistic illusion by modern art.
Section 2 "Movies" of Lumiere Brothers
The Lumiere brothers studied photography in the photo studio run by their father, Lumiere Sr., and later helped their father manage the photographic equipment factory and developed a "movable film machine". As photographers, the Lumiere brothers showed a completely different thinking concept from Edison from the beginning. This difference is not only manifested in the invention of "projection" and the improvement of film machinery and equipment, but also in the fundamental differences in time and space concepts and aesthetics of their film works.
As an inventor, Edison made great contributions to movies. His development of film machines and devices laid the foundation for the birth of new art, and his greater glory is to give this new art a charming, poetic and illusory name-film. However, Edison's concept of film and this new art has great limitations. First of all, most of the films shown in Edison's "Movie Mirror" were shot in a device he set up called "Black Prison Car". In fact, his creation itself did not break away from the original mode of "photo studio". In front of the "peep mirror" that only one person can see, the viewer's "peep" is just repeating the photographer's "peep" again and again. Followed by Dixon's first 50 or so works, such as The Scene of the Bar, Dance of annabella, Tooth Extraction, Barber, Pierre Buffalo, etc. Most of them simply show entertainment scenes such as dancing, boxing, juggling and playing games. The characters in the film are all performed by actors invited by Edison for the camera, just like "moving photos". It's just some fictional little programs that apply the model of stage play. On the contrary, the Lumiere brothers took a more realistic attitude. First of all, they got rid of the shackles of the closed artificial space owned by photographers in the studio and moved towards the vast and open natural space. The content of the work is also to express and copy the things and lives that actually exist in real life, rather than to arrange and perform those things and lives that don't actually exist for the camera. For example, short films originally shot by Louis Lumiere, such as Factory Gate, Train Entering Station, Woman Burning Grass, Ship Leaving Port, Delegate Landing, Police Parade, etc. , directly show the off-duty workers, passengers getting on and off the bus, working women, fishermen rowing out to sea, photographers ashore, policemen marching on the street, etc. In these works, the Lumiere brothers truly captured and recorded scenes in real life, allowing people to see real life and familiar people around them. As georges sadoul said, people learned from Louis Lumiere's movies that movies can be "a machine that reproduces life", not just a machine that acts like Edison's "movie mirror".