A Toddler Learns To Walk - The Early Cinemas.

Once upon a time there lived a man called Edison, in whose dream God appeared and instructed him to invent a time machine. Poor guy, interpreted his instructions differently and designed a device that controls time! Nevertheless, he called it the motion-camera. Mankind had no clue how this device can be used. Days passed and Edison demonstrated the usage of this device, how an event can stay in time forever. He moved the crank with his bare hands and the happenings around him were ‘stored’ on a celluloid tape. Just like a still picture; just that now the pictures moved. Amazed, mankind reproduced thinkers who formed their schools centred on the aesthetic values of this technology. Where one school believed that this technology was excellent to capture reality, the other believed this technology is the only way to escape the harsh reality! Something tremendous happened in the later phase, as mankind learnt this device has given birth to an art form that was named as cinema! But this art form was confused of its origins, that was when the existing philosophers and thinkers came to the rescue. Cinema, the toddler, found its foster parents. Where some justified cinema as a realist form of art, others were confirmed that cinema can take surrealism to a level never imagined before. The toddler also attracted different confused artists who weren’t finding a medium to express themselves. The German expressionists, the Soviet experimentalists, the European surrealists and realists, the American classics, all were invited; and the party that started without a lot of gaga, gave rise to the greatest collective art form ever.

The toddler was now walking, not just walking but was swinging its arms happily. The amalgamation of the thoughts gave rise to some tremendously brilliant art pieces and artists. The Lumiere brothers started to capture the world around them as it is. What became evident from most of their works was- they laid importance to something that another artist in the later phase would call ‘Typage’. The characters shown in the cinema they created had clear indication of the social class to which they belong. Be it the upper classy class in the Arrival of the train, or the labour class in the Demolition of the wall. They too captured the harsh nature in Barque sortant du port; violent activities like the Spanish bull fight was an eye opener. Subconsciously, the Lumieres were portraying an art that was breaking the norms and demarcations that the society had created. The Spanish bull fight was now known to the world, the violence in the stormy oceans was now no more only a description in a story. They took the news reels to a level which stated- ‘cinema exists around you, all you have to do is look!’ The hardships that these laureates went through were reflected in their arts. At almost the same period, a magician, Melies discarded the blind believes and superstitions and took cinema to the sun’s stomach through his film Voyage to the moon. Perhaps the first film with a plot that arouse a sense of fright and anxiety amongst the viewers. The magician had clinched to a medium which was a magic in itself. The genre- Fantasy was born. Then came Porter’s The great train robbery, which showed us a plot consisting of parallel story lines. Cinema was in safe hands! Artists then began to explore the possibilities of the cinematograph. R.W. Paul showed the power of cuts and how reality can be ‘intercut’ with an unreal situation. This gave rise to master pieces like Extraordinary cab accident and The (?)Motorist. Countrymen and the cinematograph was just his fascination over the medium. Paul’s Come along, do! appealed the viewers and patrons to appreciate cinema as the greatest medium of art. It was also a clear demarcation that Paul believed the medium to be a portal to escape the bland reality. The artists were in abundance and the toddler was now eager to run. With the showing of Brunele and Dali’s Un chien andalou, the medium assured itself to be a surreal medium, powerful than any other art forms. These early cinema were the chief reason behind the cinema revolutions in the west, the Europe and the Soviet. Avant garde artists, the experimenta, neorealism, Hollywood, would not have taken place hadn’t the early cinema proved the medium to be the greatest art form existing.

The medium got appreciated, explored and patronized by film companies and individuals who believed the art form as the sole means to express their thoughts. The early cinema’s simplicity and story telling abilities were at its peak. As they say, invention only follows a need. The stalwarts invented techniques that made the toddler to take leaps and even do a small gig! Today, after a century, the saga just continues. The toddler is still walking, the art form is still a toddler!