All of us are here because we love movies. However, even the best movie geeks are sometimes unaware of some minute details, like the first female director ever, the first 3D movie, the first movie made in colour, and so on. Worry not! We are here to cover your tracks and complete your stories. Here is a list of some of the milestones in cinema, the “firsts” that changed the world of cinema forever.
Milestones in Cinema: First Movie
The first movie ever was not very long. Some might even contest that it doesn’t count as a movie at all! However, it qualifies the criteria for a “movie”, and hence, it is known as the first movie ever. The earliest surviving motion-picture film is Roundhay Garden Scene, directed by Louis Le Prince (1888). This 2.11 seconds long movie by the French inventor shows – for the first time ever – actual consecutive action.
Milestones in Cinema: First Movie depicting Homosexuality
Though not the most positive, or the most accurate, the first depiction of homosexuality can be traced back to The Dickson Experimental Sound Film. The “depiction” here was a scene of two men dancing together. Even though, thankfully, the world is gradually becoming LGBT-friendly; but back in 1895, the movie scene “shocked audiences with its subversion of conventional male behavior”, according to a later film critic, Parker Tyler.
Milestones in Cinema: First Female Director
The first female director in cinema did not arrive as late as some people might have expected. Alice Guy-Blaché made the first narrative film in history in 1896. She is said to have made nearly 1000 films in her lifetime. She is also often credited for the first close-up, along with the invention of the concept of filming on location.
Milestones in Cinema: First Movie Critic
In 1912, a news correspondent for the London Evening News, WG Faulkner, began a regular “kinema” (early version of the term “cinema”) column in the newspaper. Faulkner is described as author of the “first regular criticisms of films in any British newspaper”. “The picture theatre has taken a firm place in the social enjoyment of the people,” he once wrote. “It is no longer a matter of wonder; it has become an everyday part of the national life.”
Milestones in Cinema: First Sequel
In 1916, an American silent movie, The Fall of a Nation (based on a book of the same name), became the first ever film sequel. Its prequel was The Birth of a Nation (1915). Although the film was a success in the foreign markets, it was considered to be a failure in the home market, i.e., America.
Milestones in Cinema: First Animated Movie
Many debate that the first animated movie was Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. However, many others debate that the first animated movie was in fact created much earlier, in 1917 itself. El Apóstol (“The Apostle”) was an Argentine film which utilized cutout animation. The 70-minute film was lost in a fire. It was directed and written by Argentine cartoonist, Quirino Cristiani.
Milestones in Cinema: First Movie Made in Colour
Cupid Angling in 1918 came out as the first movie made in colour (silent). As the advertisement itself says, it was the “first photoplay made in natural colors”. The film used the Douglas Natural colour process. Produced by Leon F. Douglass’s National Color Film Company, the movie was shot in the Lake Lagunitas area of Marin County, California.
Milestones in Cinema: First 3D Movie
The first 3D movie ever made was The Power of Love, which premiered in 1922. Directed by Harry K. Fairall, the movie is now presumed to be lost. The film was released in the Ambassador Htel Theatre, Los Angleles. It is the only film released in the two-projector, two-camera Fairall-Elder stereoscopic format developed by Robert F. Elder and Harry K. Fairall.
Milestones in Cinema: First Non-Silent Movie
The first movie with sound in it was The Jazz Singer (1927), an American musical. It was the first feature film presented as a “talkie”. The movie had sounds and effects recorded with Vitaphone. Vitaphone was the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology at the time. This milestone in cinema technology ended the era of silent films.
Milestones in Cinema: First Movie-star
The first movie star was also the first movie actor named publicly. Florence Lawrence was a Canadian-American film actress and stage performer. Before Florence Lawrence, actors, directors, screenwriters or producers were not credited on screen. She also came to be known as the Biograph Girl, because of her brilliant performance in the 1909 Biograph film, ‘Resurrection’.
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