Narration in Early Cinema
From the beginnings of cinema, around 1895 to the late teens of the twentieth century, cinema underwent a major reform of stylistic properties. Its initial use of displaying actualities, normally landscapes or news events, carried the industry until it became a mainstay in the artistic world. By the late teens, cinema had changed structurally to become a form of narrative. The shift from non-narrative to narrative filmmaking was caused by a desire for a more middle class audience. Along with this motion, the presentation of character psychology and the technical and stylistic innovations that arose during this time became the basis for the narrative film. While these were the most influential factors, others also led to the creation and acceptance of the narrative film. Some of these were cinema’s ability to adapt certain influences, it’s longevity as a novelty in the entertainment industry and the financial restrictions placed upon it. In order to have a greater understanding of the key reasons that led to the creation of the feature film, it is necessary to outline these minor ones first.
After the initial surge of cinema had taken place, many theatres and producers saw a drop in attendance. This was mostly caused by the repetition in the subject of most films. Many filmmakers only recorded landscapes or special events. The problem with this method is that, after a while, one begins to run out of material to use. Tom Gunning’s definition of the “Cinema of Attractions” (60) acknowledges the undeveloped nature of early cinema and it’s use as a spectacle. The use of news events as topics also created a major problem, as there were periods where the news lacked any major stories to produce. The audience might also lose interest in a particular subject before the producers found another subject to start documenting. One response was by using audience foreknowledge of other artistic materials as the basis of the film. Sadly, this idea was not well received by the mass audiences, as Charles Musser points out. The use of audience foreknowledge was not a success, since only a limited number of sources could be used that were well known by general masses (262). In order to create more material for visual spectacles, many filmmakers began to look to other cultures and modes of representation.
While American firms were producing films regularly, there was a large market for foreign imports from the exhibitors. Many producers simply copied many of the imported films for distribution within the American market. Many of the popular Italian, costume epics were mimicked as well as the French Film D’art, which was very popular throughout the European and American theatres (D. Bordwell 35). This led to the acceptance of many new stylistic techniques, since at that time the cinematic industry was still quite international in production and exchange (K. Thompson 43). The creation of the MPPC affected many of the independent filmmakers within the states. Many producers were forced to make multi-reel films due to the one-reel standard, instituted by the MPPC. This restriction also acted negatively towards members of the MPPC as they only created only one-reel films. Another restriction placed upon all American filmmakers was the financial concerns of many producers as they expressed great frustration with the large costs associated with actualities. The expenses required to venture to an exotic land were large. The endless possibilities of narrative were no match for the restriction of exotic locales. These narratives could also be rewritten to fit into a producer’s budget. By preplanning the budget with the plot, the film industry was able to create the continuity script. By listing all of the scenes in a film and organizing them by location and time, expenses were saved by not having to pay for the costs of travelling back and forth between locations to shoot in narrative order. By saving money on unnecessary spending, firms were able to use surplus funds to begin experimenting with certain genres and narrative styles.
Accompanied with these three causes, narrative filmmaking began as the film industry wished to entertain a more middle-class audience. The majority of most nickelodeon audiences in the United States were the working class, along with mothers and their children who regularly visited in the major urban theatres. Due to the reduction of hours in the workweek and the deficiency of a language barrier, many immigrants found the cinema as a cheap entertainment. During this nickelodeon boom, the many exhibitors met great criticism from many religious groups and social workers as the depicted theatres as sinister, unsanitary places. Despite it’s progression as an industry, the cinema was getting a bad image as a place where young minds were corrupted by films of executions, murder and prostitution. There was also concern over the portrayal of America to the foreign working class. Soon, enough pressure by reform groups led to many theatres deemed as health and safety risks to the public. The film industry counteracted this movement by trying to create a more respectable image of cinema as a refined art form. Exhibitors introduced the movie palace in 1913, which had the capacity of two thousand seats and were modelled by the architecture of many exotic countries like Egypt or Greece. Visiting these lavish theatres, along with the uniformed ushers and high-quality service provided was considered almost as exciting as the films themselves. Many exhibitors were also able to afford multiple projectors that established multi reel films as a part of the exhibition industry.
Producers also began to target the middle and upper class spectators by following the popularity of the French Film D’art. Many studios began creating adaptations of stage plays, or original material written by acclaimed authors, starring big name, theatre actors. Productions of historical and biblical events became an option as attention was directed towards the causal and thematic elements of certain events. As these new types of films were created, censorship boards were put in place to silence the critical reform groups about the content of the films. (D. Bordwell, K. Thompson 40) Filmmakers were now able to address the issues of how to make a more complex film that would satisfy the middle class’ demand for stimulation and engagement.
As the subject matter of films steadily shifted towards literary adaptations and cause and effect progression, the focus for many filmmakers was to increase the emphasis on character psychology. For an audience member to become engaged with a film, some level of identification is needed to allow the viewer to project their emotions or experiences onto the characters, making them seem more lifelike and believable. As agency was given to characters within the film, the original method of melodrama acting created problems as the wild gestures often could not convey the character’s emotions clearly. The act of looking into the camera was also removed from most filmmaking as it created a disruption in the viewer’s interaction with the film. In order for the audience to identify with the character, the actor needs to be presented well in a realistic environment. Filmmakers began to move the camera closer to the actors, in order to be able to read their gestures and facial expressions. By using close-ups and medium shots, actors were able to rely on their facially expressed emotions. The three-quarter shot was established in 1911, framing the character from the head to just above the knees. (Pearson 29). This created a visual balance between the character and their environment.
The credibility of the diegetic world was also required for the viewer’s ability to accept the narrative. Filmmakers tried to create a realistic set using techniques such as shooting on location and the use of key lighting to represent a diegetic light source. The point of view shot also allowed audiences to identify with the characters, as close-ups of certain objects within the scene were able to present characters’ thoughts. The use of marked camera angles and mobile framing were also useful in the presentation of a character’s point of view. By setting up a level of verisimilitude within the story and by presenting a series of subjective views of the characters, attention slowly began to shift to the causalities involved within the movie. Intertitles helped convey some of these causes. Expository titles summarized an upcoming action or situation while dialogue titles functioned as the final step in conveying the plot to the audience. As these techniques helped the audience to identify with the characters on a personal level, filmmakers used innovations within production to help the audience understand the narrative as a whole.
As films became longer and more structured, the amount of shots required to tell the narrative became greater. Many technical and stylistic achievements by filmmakers allowed for the clarification of spatial and temporal relations, the foundation of narrative filmmaking. In order to tell a story clearly, emphasis rests on the most important elements of the visual. The use of masks and irises, along with close shots and cut-ins, allowed the filmmaker to direct the audiences’ gaze towards key objects in the scene, opposed to the original system of a single, panoramic take. The use of only one long shot created the possibility for losing the viewer, as they had to take in every detail of the screen. (Cook 209). The emergence of the tripod, around 1911, also helped to clarify the filmic space as panning and tilting kept the viewer within the same space, opposed to cutting which required an unconscious check of the space filmed. The establishment of spatial relations was standardized through the creation of the 180-degree rule, and the use of contiguity editing. Characters would exit the frame in one shot on one side and emerge on the opposite side in the next shot, creating the match on action cut. Characters would also emerge from the same exit in a scene, as can be seen in the film Rescued by Rover (UK 1905) when the dog enters and exits from the same point of the frame as it runs back and forth between the baby and the house.
The development of temporal relations allowed the viewer to construct the entire narrative without being disrupted abruptly. The removal of overlapping action and the creation of parallel editing allowed for the presentation of more complex stories (Musser 269). In The Runaway Horse (France 1907), shots alternate between the horse eating a bag of oats and the deliveryman. Each cut to the horse shows the bag of oats emptier and the horse more muscular. These two separate scenes are shown together as they create an element of suspense that is inherent to the film and the chase genre, which Tom Gunning states as “the original truly narrative genre of the cinema, providing a model for causality and linearity….” (60)
During the first two decades of the twentieth century in the United States, film subject matter deviated from the original non-narrative form to a more narrative-oriented cinema. This transition was caused by the film industry’s desire for a more bourgeois audience as well as the focus on identification and narrative clarity, which required the creation of many innovations within film production.
Bibliography
Borwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film History: An Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003.
Cheval emballé, Le (The Runaway Horse). Dir. Louis J. Gasnier. France, 1908.
“History of Narrative Codes: Introduction & Early Cinema." The Cinema Book. ed. Pam Cook. London: British Film Institute, 1985. pp. 208-211.
Gunning, Tom. “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde," 1986, rpt. In Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative. ed. Thomas Elsaesser. London: BFI, 1990. pp. 56-62.
Musser, Charles. “The Nickelodeon Era Begins: Establishing the Framework for Hollywood’s Mode of Representation," 1984, rpt. In Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative. pp. 256-273.
Pearson, Roberta. “Transitional Cinema," in The Oxford History of World Cinema, ed. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. pp. 23-42.Rescued by Rover. Dir. Lewin Fitzhamon and Cecil M. Hepworth. US, 1905.
After the initial surge of cinema had taken place, many theatres and producers saw a drop in attendance. This was mostly caused by the repetition in the subject of most films. Many filmmakers only recorded landscapes or special events. The problem with this method is that, after a while, one begins to run out of material to use. Tom Gunning’s definition of the “Cinema of Attractions” (60) acknowledges the undeveloped nature of early cinema and it’s use as a spectacle. The use of news events as topics also created a major problem, as there were periods where the news lacked any major stories to produce. The audience might also lose interest in a particular subject before the producers found another subject to start documenting. One response was by using audience foreknowledge of other artistic materials as the basis of the film. Sadly, this idea was not well received by the mass audiences, as Charles Musser points out. The use of audience foreknowledge was not a success, since only a limited number of sources could be used that were well known by general masses (262). In order to create more material for visual spectacles, many filmmakers began to look to other cultures and modes of representation.
While American firms were producing films regularly, there was a large market for foreign imports from the exhibitors. Many producers simply copied many of the imported films for distribution within the American market. Many of the popular Italian, costume epics were mimicked as well as the French Film D’art, which was very popular throughout the European and American theatres (D. Bordwell 35). This led to the acceptance of many new stylistic techniques, since at that time the cinematic industry was still quite international in production and exchange (K. Thompson 43). The creation of the MPPC affected many of the independent filmmakers within the states. Many producers were forced to make multi-reel films due to the one-reel standard, instituted by the MPPC. This restriction also acted negatively towards members of the MPPC as they only created only one-reel films. Another restriction placed upon all American filmmakers was the financial concerns of many producers as they expressed great frustration with the large costs associated with actualities. The expenses required to venture to an exotic land were large. The endless possibilities of narrative were no match for the restriction of exotic locales. These narratives could also be rewritten to fit into a producer’s budget. By preplanning the budget with the plot, the film industry was able to create the continuity script. By listing all of the scenes in a film and organizing them by location and time, expenses were saved by not having to pay for the costs of travelling back and forth between locations to shoot in narrative order. By saving money on unnecessary spending, firms were able to use surplus funds to begin experimenting with certain genres and narrative styles.
Accompanied with these three causes, narrative filmmaking began as the film industry wished to entertain a more middle-class audience. The majority of most nickelodeon audiences in the United States were the working class, along with mothers and their children who regularly visited in the major urban theatres. Due to the reduction of hours in the workweek and the deficiency of a language barrier, many immigrants found the cinema as a cheap entertainment. During this nickelodeon boom, the many exhibitors met great criticism from many religious groups and social workers as the depicted theatres as sinister, unsanitary places. Despite it’s progression as an industry, the cinema was getting a bad image as a place where young minds were corrupted by films of executions, murder and prostitution. There was also concern over the portrayal of America to the foreign working class. Soon, enough pressure by reform groups led to many theatres deemed as health and safety risks to the public. The film industry counteracted this movement by trying to create a more respectable image of cinema as a refined art form. Exhibitors introduced the movie palace in 1913, which had the capacity of two thousand seats and were modelled by the architecture of many exotic countries like Egypt or Greece. Visiting these lavish theatres, along with the uniformed ushers and high-quality service provided was considered almost as exciting as the films themselves. Many exhibitors were also able to afford multiple projectors that established multi reel films as a part of the exhibition industry.
Producers also began to target the middle and upper class spectators by following the popularity of the French Film D’art. Many studios began creating adaptations of stage plays, or original material written by acclaimed authors, starring big name, theatre actors. Productions of historical and biblical events became an option as attention was directed towards the causal and thematic elements of certain events. As these new types of films were created, censorship boards were put in place to silence the critical reform groups about the content of the films. (D. Bordwell, K. Thompson 40) Filmmakers were now able to address the issues of how to make a more complex film that would satisfy the middle class’ demand for stimulation and engagement.
As the subject matter of films steadily shifted towards literary adaptations and cause and effect progression, the focus for many filmmakers was to increase the emphasis on character psychology. For an audience member to become engaged with a film, some level of identification is needed to allow the viewer to project their emotions or experiences onto the characters, making them seem more lifelike and believable. As agency was given to characters within the film, the original method of melodrama acting created problems as the wild gestures often could not convey the character’s emotions clearly. The act of looking into the camera was also removed from most filmmaking as it created a disruption in the viewer’s interaction with the film. In order for the audience to identify with the character, the actor needs to be presented well in a realistic environment. Filmmakers began to move the camera closer to the actors, in order to be able to read their gestures and facial expressions. By using close-ups and medium shots, actors were able to rely on their facially expressed emotions. The three-quarter shot was established in 1911, framing the character from the head to just above the knees. (Pearson 29). This created a visual balance between the character and their environment.
The credibility of the diegetic world was also required for the viewer’s ability to accept the narrative. Filmmakers tried to create a realistic set using techniques such as shooting on location and the use of key lighting to represent a diegetic light source. The point of view shot also allowed audiences to identify with the characters, as close-ups of certain objects within the scene were able to present characters’ thoughts. The use of marked camera angles and mobile framing were also useful in the presentation of a character’s point of view. By setting up a level of verisimilitude within the story and by presenting a series of subjective views of the characters, attention slowly began to shift to the causalities involved within the movie. Intertitles helped convey some of these causes. Expository titles summarized an upcoming action or situation while dialogue titles functioned as the final step in conveying the plot to the audience. As these techniques helped the audience to identify with the characters on a personal level, filmmakers used innovations within production to help the audience understand the narrative as a whole.
As films became longer and more structured, the amount of shots required to tell the narrative became greater. Many technical and stylistic achievements by filmmakers allowed for the clarification of spatial and temporal relations, the foundation of narrative filmmaking. In order to tell a story clearly, emphasis rests on the most important elements of the visual. The use of masks and irises, along with close shots and cut-ins, allowed the filmmaker to direct the audiences’ gaze towards key objects in the scene, opposed to the original system of a single, panoramic take. The use of only one long shot created the possibility for losing the viewer, as they had to take in every detail of the screen. (Cook 209). The emergence of the tripod, around 1911, also helped to clarify the filmic space as panning and tilting kept the viewer within the same space, opposed to cutting which required an unconscious check of the space filmed. The establishment of spatial relations was standardized through the creation of the 180-degree rule, and the use of contiguity editing. Characters would exit the frame in one shot on one side and emerge on the opposite side in the next shot, creating the match on action cut. Characters would also emerge from the same exit in a scene, as can be seen in the film Rescued by Rover (UK 1905) when the dog enters and exits from the same point of the frame as it runs back and forth between the baby and the house.
The development of temporal relations allowed the viewer to construct the entire narrative without being disrupted abruptly. The removal of overlapping action and the creation of parallel editing allowed for the presentation of more complex stories (Musser 269). In The Runaway Horse (France 1907), shots alternate between the horse eating a bag of oats and the deliveryman. Each cut to the horse shows the bag of oats emptier and the horse more muscular. These two separate scenes are shown together as they create an element of suspense that is inherent to the film and the chase genre, which Tom Gunning states as “the original truly narrative genre of the cinema, providing a model for causality and linearity….” (60)
During the first two decades of the twentieth century in the United States, film subject matter deviated from the original non-narrative form to a more narrative-oriented cinema. This transition was caused by the film industry’s desire for a more bourgeois audience as well as the focus on identification and narrative clarity, which required the creation of many innovations within film production.
Bibliography
Borwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film History: An Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003.
Cheval emballé, Le (The Runaway Horse). Dir. Louis J. Gasnier. France, 1908.
“History of Narrative Codes: Introduction & Early Cinema." The Cinema Book. ed. Pam Cook. London: British Film Institute, 1985. pp. 208-211.
Gunning, Tom. “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde," 1986, rpt. In Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative. ed. Thomas Elsaesser. London: BFI, 1990. pp. 56-62.
Musser, Charles. “The Nickelodeon Era Begins: Establishing the Framework for Hollywood’s Mode of Representation," 1984, rpt. In Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative. pp. 256-273.
Pearson, Roberta. “Transitional Cinema," in The Oxford History of World Cinema, ed. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. pp. 23-42.Rescued by Rover. Dir. Lewin Fitzhamon and Cecil M. Hepworth. US, 1905.
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