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I am going to talk about the history of cinema.

I have chosen this topic for my speech because, although nowadays we can enjoy new technologies which allow us to take or emit images and music easily, I find it interesting to remind you that everything started a hundred years ago, more or less, with the invention and development of some gadgets and ideas which now could be considered childish

During my speech I am going to show you some pictures related to something I want to say.

1-In this picture you can see the title I have chosen.

Why a brief history?

The first thing I would like to say is that summarizing a hundred years in a few minutes forces me to choose some events from history, a choice that it obviously is subjective.

At this point I would like you to consider the problem of subjectivity and objectivity of images and mass media in general so, to illustrate this, I am going to propose to you a little visual game:

2-If we have a look at this picture, what do you think it represents? (Maybe you are thinking of a woman…, a special kind of woman…)

3-Now, look at this one taken from a different angle. (The woman has a baby and a dog)

The new perspective might change the thoughts we were thinking about.

In conclusion: the same image may offer different points of view and it always depends on the person who decided what to show us and how to do it. The only thing we can do is think about it so, “welcome to the world of manipulation”.

4- In this picture you can see a bison from Altamira and a Chinese Shadow

(Apart from this) Human beings have always wanted to reflect the reality as accurately as possible:

From Primitive Men from Altamira, who drew bisons with eight legs to simulate movement, till the ancient Chinese civilization with their Chinese shadows.

(Do not try to search for the eight legs because it is another picture)

We can consider this as the prehistory of the cinema but, jumping forward in time, up to the XIX century we find the direct precursor of the cinema.

To make this possible it would be necessary to mention two previous inventions:

On the one hand, “the roll of film”, an evolution from photographic plate, whose success is attributed to George Eastman and T. A. Edison.

On the other hand “the camera”, which lets us take 24 photos per minute, simulating real movement.

5-(In this picture you can see them both with their inventions)

6- In this picture you can see some antecedents of the camera:

“The Magic Lantern”; a machine devised to animate drawings/pictures.

“The Photographic Gun”; invented by Marey in 1882. It was a gadget which could take multiple/several photographies per second (12). The term “shooting a film” was possibly derived from Marey’s invention.

Bearing in mind all this, we are prepared to attend the first cinematographic session in history. It was celebrated in Paris on the 28 of December of 1895 thanks to Lumiere Brothers who went down in history as the inventors of cinema as we know it these days.

7- In this picture you can see Louis and Auguste Lumiere and their first camera.

In that first commercial exhibition the 33 spectators could see 11 films for 1 franc. Each film was about 1 minute long and showed different scenes from ordinary life.

8- I am going to emphasize three of them which you can see in the next pictures:

The first is:

“Workers leaving the Lumiere Factory”, which two years later, funnily enough, inspired the first Spanish film, “People leaving mass in el Pilar Church” by Eduardo Gimeno.

9-The second film I have chosen is considered the first comic film in history:

“The gardener” or “The sprinkler sprinkled”; in which a gardener gets wet because of a trick/joke of a child.

The third is:

“The arrival of a train”, which is considered the first horror film because people got shocked when they watched a train that seemed to be coming out of the screen, towards the spectators/audience.

All these films showed scenes from ordinary life shot in only one plane, but very soon another French man, the magician George Melies, would start to make the cinema a spectacle. He is considered the first director, scriptwriter, author, designer … And, besides, he invented the first trick or special effect. It happened by chance since, when he was shooting the camera broke down and when, after being repaired, he went on, the scene had changed. So, at the moment the film was projected, the public could watch a man where there was a woman.

10- This is a Melies’ portrait and a frame of his film “A Trip to the Moon”

In these films the camera remained stationary and shooting from one position only. It was a kind of theatre shooting.

11-The next character in this brief history is David Griffith (in the picture with a melancholic face). He is known as “the father of film” due to the fact that he gave the future film-markers the “grammar” of films, contributing to the modern language of cinema. This means that he used the camera in new mobile ways, using different angles and focuses, flashbacks, simultaneous actions and he also edited the films.

The most well known and important film by D. Griffith is “The Birth of a Nation” because it gathered all the narrative resources developed till that moment, 1915. In spite of this ,the film was accused of racism due to the fact that a woman kidnapped by a black man is released by Ku Klux Klan.

Besides, D. Griffith directed the first film made in the small village of Hollywood, a melodrama titled “In old California” (1910).

12- In the picture a view of Hollywood in 1903 with only 5000 inhabitants and a present view of “Sunset Boulevard”.

About these first times of cinema I would like to mention a character I consider a genius; Charles Chaplin, well known as “Charlot” in his silent films but not many of his sound films such as “The Great Dictator”, a very critical film of dictatorships.

13- In this picture you can see the parody of “Chaplin-Himlet” playing with the world.

14- Following the history we have to go to 1927 to find the first film which incorporates sound, “The Jazz Singer”. It has only a few spoken lines since most of the sound sequences are musical performances by de Jewish singer Al Jolson who appeared on the film with his face made up in black.

From the 1930s the cinema started to grow and became the great industry that it is now. This period is known as “The Golden Age of Hollywood” and, during these years, the cinema developed different genres: musical, comedy, western, thriller….

15- In the late 30s the film “Gone with the Wind” (1939) began the era of super productions and went down in history as the first long and full colour film, although previously there had been others not so famous.

Now, I am going to speak about “the Start System” led by great film studios, actors and directors. What best represents this time is “The Academy Awards” known as “The Oscars”. The first ceremony was held in 1929, but it would be in 1941 when their famous and present system was introduced.

16- In this picture you can see the famous red carpet of the Kodak Theatre, where the ceremony takes place,

The most popular story about the origin of the name “Oscars” involves an executive director who seeing the little statue exclaimed “it looks just like my uncle Oscar!”. The name stuck and it has been called by this name ever since.

17- The first Spanish film which won the Oscar Award was “Volver a Empezar” (1982) by J. L. Garci. It is about a writer who after receiving the Nobel Prize, comes back to his home town. This town is Gijón and, of course, the film was shot here. Although, the first Spaniard who won The Oscar was Gil Parrondo, in 1970, working as Art Director in the film “Patton”. This artist was born in Luarca in 1921.

But not only is the “Dream Factory”, as Hollywood is known , the one which produces films, but I would like to remember the European cinema and its most important Festivals such as Berlin, Venetia, Cannes, and in Spain San Sebastian and Gijón.

18- In this picture you can see the different prizes of these festivals: the palm from Cannes, The Lyon from Venice, the Bear from Berlin and the shell from San Sebastian.

19- One final thing I would like to say is that I had the chance of working for Gijón Film Festival in the early 80s. At that time the festival was different from the way it is now since it was a specialized Festival dedicated to the childhood and youth.

20-I am ending my speech and there are a lot of events that I have not commented but, so far, as some of the most famous characters from cartoons say “that is all folks!”

Thank you for your attention.