Here’s the mission:
To briefly identify and outline distinct phases in the history of moving pictures.
Here’s the structure:
What constitutes a phase? We’ll use roughly 13-year intervals. That feels right. You were probably around 12 or 13 years old when you fully evolved into a little shit in real life. And then in another 12 or 13 years, in your mid-20s, you evolved again (we hope) into an independent, adult shit. I also thoroughly checked different scenarios and that truly felt like the best range of years for the mission.
Please note, though, that the phases as written below have no overlap in years (because it’s prettier that way), but just keep the suffix “ish” in your mind at all times. So, for example, phase six is 1953(ish) to 1965(ish).
Each phase will be mostly defined by one, prominent trait or idea.
We’ll highlight one movie or series, per phase, that feels the most representative of the major qualities of that time. It won’t necessarily be the best or the most popular but just the most of whatever the qualities of that phase are.
Outside of the listed phases are four, larger ages in moving pictures, which mark greater, holistic shifts in the form.
One more thing:
Where do we start? The choice is 1888 — The Roundhay Garden Scene. That’s right; we’re going to the start start. Another option could have been even earlier, in 1878, with Eadweard Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion but that was the illusion of a moving picture. It was a series of photos/cards played in succession to look like a horse in motion. Another option was L'Arroseur Arrosé by Louie Lumiere in 1895, which is a forty second clip of a boy playing a prank on a man watering his garden. It’s arguably the first evidence of someone “acting” out a scene for the camera. But, we’re going with Roundhay, which is the first (arguably, always) evidence of a true, moving picture.
— Let us begin.
the first age
(PHASE) 01
“A RE-DISCOVERY OF LIFE” | 1888 - 1900
Here’s how I imagine it went down. It’s 1888 in Leeds, England, and Louie Le Prince (which is an all-time cool name) tests out his new invention, a single-lens camera, with a few friends in the garden of the Whitley family home, outside the city. After testing, Le Prince processes the film substance then takes his camera and its consequences over to a house with more friends and family gathered. On the walk over, he bounces; he can’t stop smiling. He passes by a few people who don’t know the future in the device in the hands of the stranger just gone by.
At the house, he shows the result to the people gathered. “My, God” exclaims one lady. “Oh, Louie” says another. “I’m alive on the screen” says Adolphe Le Prince, Louie’s son and the man in motion. It’s all they can talk about for the rest of the evening. … And so it began. Soon Le Prince would be joined by the Lumiere brothers, Thomas Edison and more in the discovery of moving pictures and of a new projection of life.
02
“THE SHAPE OF THINGS” | 1901 - 1913
If the first phase was discovery, this phase is exploration, with the primary quality being the realization of “the cut,” of being able to stitch two scenes together, in order. It started crudely, with figures moving around for one or two minutes within a full frame before a cut to another full frame. Soon, some modern editing practices appeared, like in 1903’s The Great Train Robbery which used “the cut” and smaller frames to evoke emotion. In 1906, the stitching of scenes and manipulation of frames reached its greatest length (70 minutes) with The Story of the Kelley Gang, cited as the first feature film.
The picture of the period is A Trip to the Moon, 1902. It’s director, Georges Méliès was a pioneer in utilizing the moving picture for storytelling. Moon was his greatest ambition to date, an outer space epic with extensive set and costume design. In the video below, notice the use of exclusively full frames throughout and how it mirrors the primary medium of pop culture at that time - the theater.
03
“THE PICTURE GETS BIG” | 1914 - 1926
And so it was settled. First, the movie form, which popularized into a 60-120 minute runtime. But also, the players, the town and the place in culture. In 1911, The Life and Deeds of the Immortal Vozde Karadorde hits the 90 minute mark and by the 1920s, the shorter films and serials become less fashionable. The modern film crew takes shape and the foundation of the studio and distribution system crystallizes. In 1923, the Hollywoodland sign goes up in the hills of Greater Los Angeles and the birth of the movie star creates sensation and fantasy for the populace.
The picture of the period is The Kid by Charlie Chaplin, 1921. It had to be him. A poor, vaudeville performer turned biggest star in the world. His famous persona - “The Tramp” - debuted in the 1914 short Kid Auto Races at Venice. The Kid was his first feature. The movie, about a man who takes in an orphan is a last relic of Chaplin’s (and the form’s) evolution from the stage, in which performers didn’t act, but rather, they put on one.
THE SECOND AGE
04
“SOUND AND COLOR!” | 1927 - 1939
This phase saw two, major advancements in the form. The first was synchronized sound, meaning after 40 years of moving pictures, an audience would finally hear the words coming out of an actor’s mouth as well as the atmospheric sounds in a scene. To this day, it’s probably the greatest innovation since the invention of the motion picture itself. Color had existed sparingly, mostly in kinemacolor, a natural coloring process to the film with a subdued result, but in the 1930s, the wonder of technicolor emerged, enabling both deep and bright colorscapes unlike anything seen before on the screen.
The picture of the period is The Jazz Singer, 1927. It was the first film with synchronized sound. I considered The Wizard of Oz, which was a culmination of all the advancements in sound, music, color and effects to date come together. But, The Jazz Singer was the greater killer. In five years, the silent picture was more or less dead, whereas the black and white picture still remained popular all the way into the 1960s.
05
“THE WORLD’S A STAGE” | 1940 - 1952
Of all the phases in the form’s history, this period most lacked a defining quality or innovation. Sure, Citizen Kane premiered in 1941 and was revolutionary in its use of lighting, frames and overall storytelling. But, it was an outlier. The truth is, it was a time of stasis, because, well, there was a World War happening from the start, on a scale and with an aftermath greater than ever. Innovation across all industries was focused elsewhere. James Stewart, who was quite famous by wartime, left Hollywood altogether to serve in the Army for six years before returning in It’s a Wonderful Life in 1947.
The picture of the period is Casablanca, 1942. Was there any doubt? First, it’s about the war and one man’s attempt to find refuge from the Nazi’s. If we just focus on the filmmaking, though, it’s also a story about an American immigrant and his cafe in French Morocco, but it was filmed in a studio hangar in Burbank. “On-location” was nonexistent at the time as the vast studio lots dressed up as the world at large.
06
“A LITTLE BIT OF SAUCE” | 1953 - 1965
By the early 1950s, scripted television was here and there was no going back. Monumental hits like I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke spearheaded a new form - the ongoing series. “Serials” had existed before, as early as the 1910s, though they worked more like a limited series does today. Now, there were series with 30+ episodes per season, with plans to go until their legs gave out. … A second trait of the time was the ascension of the director, of the “auteur,” whose original voices lead movies and some TV to get a little loose and get a little more funky in both their filmmaking and storytelling.
The picture of the period is a number of pictures under one title, The Twilight Zone, 1959-1964. Here we have the new form and the new style in one. Twilight didn’t have the recurring characters of an ongoing series but the anthology program helped elevate TV as a place to tell stories. What’s more, on any given week it was eccentric, provoking, artistic, original — all under the unmistakable influence of its auteur, Rod Serling.
THE THIRD AGE
07
“A NEW WAAAAVE” | 1966 - 1978
When I think about the previous phase, I picture a giant wall in a studio lot hangar with cracks in which small beams of light shone through. And in this phase, the wall is damn near down and waves of light burst through it. It was different now. Kubrick and Coppola were on the scene, making modern movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Godfather. In 1975, Jaws solidified the all-in-on-opening-weekend blockbuster, whereas before movies took their time. TV was zestier than ever with Star Trek and All in the Family and any remnants of “golden age” stylings were few and very far between.
The picture of the period is another series of them: MASH, 1972-1983. TV’s rebel phase arrived slower than the movies (can’t upset the advertisers!) but by 1970 with MASH and Family it had caught up. MASH was born of the movie from two years earlier, about a field hospital unit in the Korean War. The series was pop and art and silly and dark and week in and out it was a middle finger to American involvement in recent wars.
08
“REPEAT BUSINESS, BABY” | 1979 - 1991
A franchise is born. Make that several franchises are born. Hello, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Alien, Terminator, Ghostbusters and Mad Max. We loved your first movie, now give us your sequels and your merchandise and in some cases your theme park rides. It wasn’t just movies, either. People became franchises. It’s a Steven Spielberg movie; it’s a John Hughes flick; it’s an Eddie Murphy joint - each name with a defined brand. It was also a time of mega hits. Sure, Gone With the Wind became a phenomenon in 1940 but it was a slower boil. Now, a hit splashed you right in the face.
The picture of the period is The Empire Strikes Back, 1980. Certainly, Star Wars (A New Hope) was a massive mark, but for me, Empire was even more so, for it was a major catalyst for all of the above. It proved that we could, and depending who you are, should take a story further and that it can sustain or even grow in popularity. Of course, it can’t be any movie - it’s gotta have a hook. Thus, post-Star Wars, a boom in action + fantasy.
09
“THE LITTLE, F**KIN’ ENGINE THAT COULD” | 1992 - 2004
Time for the rise of the indie movie (and the F bomb). Note 1: First, the big engines were still doing just fine. Note 2: Rise doesn’t mean arrival. Indie films had certainly existed. In The First Age, stars like Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks started United Artists to wrestle control from the larger studios. In The Second Age, filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard scampered around Europe with makeshift crew and equipment. But Chaplin was already an icon and Godard, though great, was not commercially successful, now both the movie and the maker could be both lucrative and independent.
The picture of the period is Pulp Fiction, 1994, but with an asterisk. It was the greater critical and commercial success but it was only sort of independent. The real indie joint was Reservoir Dogs, 1992, Tarantino’s lead in to Pulp. It was made for $1.5 million dollars and was able to recoup that and a little more in its theatrical run. That opened the door to Pulp, which thrived all around on what was still a lower budget than a typical, studio film.
the FOURTH AGE
10
“ENDGAME, OF CAPITALISM” | 2005 - 2017
Okay, it went like this: the studios that began in The First Age and that consolidated in The Second Age started getting purchased or taken over in The Third Age by larger entities and by The Fourth Age those entities became larger than ever - monstrous - with appetites to match. Money is the food. So how do you make more of it? Duh, you focus most, if not all, of your energy on the thing that makes it the most. From their film and television limbs, the entities identified that thing as franchises and superheros and they tilled that and they plowed that and all but abandoned the middle class— I mean movie.
The picture of the period is The Avengers, 2012. I know; Endgame is in the title above but it was really that first Avengers movie(?) that sealed it. This was the way now. Listen, it’s always been about profit, but it just became more cynical than ever with Marvel. Some of those movies can be enjoyable. It’s just sad that they come at the expense of smaller fare that can still be profitable, it’s just that they’re “less so” for the hungry monsters.
11
“EVERYTHING IS ALL THINGS, NOTHING” | 2018 - 2030
By now, I think we know what the defining quality of the phase is: it’s streaming, and thus, a blur across the medium. In 2015, Netflix made two movies; in 2018, it was 70. Many were positioned as “big” movies, because Netflix is a film studio, but also, those movies were just TV, because Netflix is a channel or “cable.” During COVID, streaming accelerated and to increase minutes watched, the limited series became abundant. It’s a show, but also, it’s a (long) movie. Lines that used to be clear - theatrical movie, ongoing series, cable special - have become blurred, for better and for worse.
The picture of the period is Stranger Things, a drama, comedy, horror, adventure, fantasy, coming-of-age story. It’s super entertaining, but we knew that, because it’s connect-the-dots to franchise content. Its fifth season is coming, but it will have existed for 10 years. An episode could be an episode (40 minutes) or it could be a movie (two hours). It arrives with great fervor, then disappears in five days. It’s so (Phase) 11.
12
“THE HAND(S) OF GOD(S)” | 2031 - 2043
I think it all ends in here. No, I’m not making the joke that the world will probably be over by Phase 12. What I’m wondering is if it’s the last phase (and age) of an entire life cycle in moving pictures. If a phase consists of roughly 12-13 years, does roughly 12-13 phases mark an ultimate ending, and soon, a new beginning of something else? Is that too simple? Maybe. I have two predictions, though, for major qualities in the next phase that make me feel like there’s a dead end ahead; that it’s the farthest it can go, and that the medium must turn back or blaze something new forward. The predictions:
PREDICTION 1: “THE HAND OF GOD”
You heard about that artificial intelligence? I could stop there; you get it. You can say a descriptive sentence now and the contents of that sentence can appear visually within seconds. Soon enough, someone alone in a room will be able speak (or type, I’m not sure how it works) an entire movie into existence, with real looking places and real looking people. Zap! - a microwaved movie. What could be left after that? Does it sound cool? Eh, here and there. The problem is the four or five overlords who control all media are gonna love the zero labor cost, and so, there will be so many microwaved movies and series.
The picture of the period would be one starring Barbie and Ken, but not Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling and not directed by Greta Gerwig, rather a Barbie and Ken who look “human” but they’re absolutely not. The movie is “directed” by some guy named “Frank,” who is one of (Head of Warner Bros.) David Zaslav’s groupies who input into an AI generator: make movie about Barbie and Ken saving world from evil overlord (lol).
PREDICTION 2: “THE HANDS OF GODS”
Another innovation, started at the beginning of The Fourth Age, is “accessible tech,” an umbrella term we’ll use for the smartphone, internet, etc. Right now, accessible video and photography capabilities are quite advanced. Any person can make reasonably good video with their phone and an app. To supplement, the growth of the internet and spaces like YouTube have offered a legitimate platform for things made with accessible tech. On YouTube, for example, the “creator” ecosystem has grown in such ways that a single person or group of friends can now match the reach of a larger, traditional studio.
If the tech, and thus democratization, keeps advancing, the picture of the period would be a *scripted, independent project made with smaller devices, like a phone, and with real people and real settings. The project would be delivered on an open space, like YouTube, or even better, independent theaters or exhibitors, and the project’s reach - and cache - would match that of a bigger, “studio” project.
* Scripted and more adult fare is the next progression needed on places like YouTube. Right now, the major movers on there are people like Mr. Beast, who create non-fiction videos that skew toward younger audiences. Nonetheless, they do so independently and on a scale as big as any traditional studio.
***
In the end, I think it goes both ways but in a chronological order. Artificial intelligence in moving pictures - and in life - continues to grow. Also, creators like Mr. Beast - who is an extreme, best case scenario for an independent creator - continue to grow. The dominant quality of the phase, though, will be AI, or microwaved movies and series. Motion pictures exist in the world and its structures and unless there’s radical change in policy, the entities that own the studios that make the majority of pictures are going to push (in the name of money) artificial intelligence, and thus, we’ll have artificial pictures. And that could be Phase 12, the end of an entire life cycle in man-made moving pictures, from all humanity on screen to no humanity on screen.
But there’s light.
AI advances, but remember, so does the personal tech and independent creator. The overlords may pump out more microwaved movies than ever, but filmmakers and film watchers can find refuge - or even resistance - in independent spaces and with other advances in technology to make good and real things, with their own hands, outside of the broken, studio system. … And that push for independence, and resolve to keep humanity on screen and around it, can grow until it sustains and supplies on its own. Until, in a way, it’s all new again, revitalized outside of the profit-at-all costs system.
And if Phase 12 is the last phase of this life cycle in pictures, then, just as the very first phase in 1888 was “a Re-Discovery of Life,” the next life cycle in pictures can begin with “A Re-Discovery of Self.” And just like Louis Le Prince and others got to more purely create with pictures before the business took over, maybe soon we can more purely create again with a system reborn. *
“THE HISTORY OF MOVING PICTURES”