Features

The first blockbuster in film history was argubaly the fallout of Hollywood’s first major ego clash. David Wark Griffith, better known as as a shorter DW Griffith, who had failed to make it big in theatre and had subsequently written scnarios and acted in films of Edison Studios, produced and directed the Biograph film Judith of Bethulia in 1914. This was one of the earliest feature films to be produced in the United States. But Biograph thought that longer films were not viable. They believed...

Once the early filmmakers got over the fact that a film could be made of more than one shot, the multi-shot film became the norm of the day. Films of the 1902/3-07 period were no longer treating the individual shot as a self-contained unit of meaning. One shot was now linked to another. It was like putting words together to form a meaningful sentence. The grammar, in any, of course, was far from evolving. Filmmakers used succession of shots to capture ane emphasise the highpoints of the action...

The shot, as the smallest unit in a film, developed in the pre-1907 period, also known in cinema history as Early Cinema. Film historians, in fact, break up even this period into two segments: 1894-1902/3, when the majority of films consisted of one shot and were what we would today call documentary films, known at that time as actualities (based on the way the French described them); and 1903-07, when the multi-shot, fiction film gradually emerged, with simple narratives structuring the...

In the beginning, of course, there was no cinema as we understand it today. It took 20 years for the novelty of 1895 to transform into an industry. The earliest films were inane snapshots, roughly a minute in length, and often made up of a single shot. Not many dared to experiment initially. But slowly, by 1905, the average duration increased to roughly 5-10 minutes, and even employed changes of scene and camera position to illustrate a story or a theme. The cinema of the period between the mid...

A little more than a 100 years ago, a 20-year-old girl who barely knew the facts of life, accidentally became pregnant. At the turn of the 20th century when the very idea of single mothers would have been outlandish and scandalous even in Europe, this gritty young woman refused to marry the would-be-father. She brought up the child on her own. The life of Asta Nielsen (born 1881) today is canned history, but if one were to be told about her, it would be no surprise to know that the first truly...

“Of everything other than thought, there can be no history.” RG Collingwood, The Idea of History Watersheds, when looked at closely – as film historian Eric Rhode wrote – become less distinctive once one delves deep into them. And to be just to the progenitors of cinema, no single discovery or invention was isolated – everything was built on a previous milestone or observation. The roots of cinema were lost in spools of films when the world paid homage to Auguste and Louis Lumiere on December 28...

The Indian film industry is one of the largest in the world, and Indian cinema is unmatched in its variety. Tracing the history of Indian cinema through the traditional methods is not tedious – it is too gargantuan a task. This is just an occasional attempt to revisit the Indian film history, and look at various aspects that have made Indian films so memorable, through different prisms. This time, we take a look at 10 celebrated, creative collaborators. There would be needless to say, problems...

This tiny hamlet is a birdwatcher’s paradise. It’s also an ornithologist’s nightmare. For, Jatinga remains a place where birds are supposed to commit suicide. Jatinga village, inhabited primarily by members of the Jaintia tribe, on the foothills of the Barail Range in the Northeast Indian state of Assam is a halting place for many birds. This mysterious phenomenon which has had ornithologists from the world over fumbling for answers is known to locals as a suspected mass suicide committed by...

Mainstream Hollywood cinema is cliche-ridden. All cliches start as facts, and then they become what they are. After a point, many become irritants. Here's my pick of the 25 most irritating ones: Let’s get out of here! Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Don’t you die on me! Breathe, dammit! Cover me. I’m going in. You can't do this to me. I'm a American citizen. You’d better come in. Follow that car! I’m not leaving you. Is this some kind of sick joke? What seems to be the problem, Officer? I...

By the time you read this piece, there might well be some developments on the front that this write-up is about. The core issue, however, will remain. It’s about the film producers being up in arms over the proposed changes to the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010. The Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by Oscar Fernandes has submitted its report on the Bill and may well become law soon. It is a 118-page report, and by far one of the most exhaustive such documents to have been produced...