Reading (Chap 2 & 3)
Reading this, I just worried about what I was going to write for this blog entry cause I have no idea what its supposed to look like, so here goes. This stuff is great! I found it really nifty looking into the early development of film making. Who knew that Nickelodeon was the name of what could very easily be seen as some of the first mainstream theater experiences since 1905. France arguably having the largest film industry at the time, Pathe Freres and Gaumont films being some of the first main big boy firms, it’s not that surprising that Italy followed closely in second. What I found fascinating was how each country specialized in specific types of films, like how Denmark was good at its “Nordisk” films which were the Crime thrillers and dramas. It’s like the beginnings of Film Noire….wait, I think that’s French. Now what I found pretty interesting was how fast there were issues with censorship, set up by the Nickelodeon phase where apparently the films were seen by some as “training for prostitution and/or robbery” and things of the sort. Everyone could have seen the patent sh** that would come with this industry, right? I mean, if I saw a large industry forming out of what could maybe be your invention, I’d also want my hand in everyone’s nickel jar like Edison attempted…maybe. The most interesting thing to me about reading this however was just learning about how people explored this new form of entertainment/study/technology/exploration. It was the way that people thought “outside of the box” that got me in the end.
Film – The General (1926)
I had lots of fun watching this film. As much as I pretend to dislike watching old films, if you get me