The Spectacle of Cinema: Five Moments That Changed Film History

Since the invention of the camera – and arguably, since the days of cave drawings – we have been fascinated by capturing images to tell a story. Today, cinema offers an experience that broadens our scope of understanding and imagination. Films can simultaneously offer an escape from our lives or reflect changing ideals in society. From classics like Casablanca (1942) or Psycho (1960) to newer films that took the world by storm like Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) or The Brutalist (2024), movies continue to be a medium that intrigue and inspire people across the world.

The new edition of A Chronology of Film by Ian Haydn Smith presents a complete history of cinema, tracing its development from the earliest moving images to the present day. Organized chronologically, it also offers fascinating context on the political and social changes that influenced the film industry as well as the technological innovations that redefined the medium.

To celebrate this captivating visual history, we invite you to explore five fascinating moments in film history that shaped movies as we know them today.

1.The first motion picture

Cameras had existed for at least half a century when Auguste and Louis Lumière unveiled a series of short films − single shots of everyday life − in Paris in 1895. While it was Louis Le Prince who made what is considered to be the first motion picture, filmed in Leeds, it was the  Lumière brothers who first screened their project to members of the public and coined the term cinématographie (which would later be shortened to cinema).

As the story goes, during the screening of the Lumières’ short film The Arrival of a Train (L’arrivée d’un train a La Ciotat, 1896), the audience was so startled by the sight of a moving locomotive that they ran out of the screening room, fearing they would be run over. This moment, though unproven and now something of an urban legend, is indicative of the thrilling and innovative nature of film and its potential to captivate an audience.

Around the world, there were attempts at creating moving images to varying degrees of success, but it was the innovation of the Lumière brothers that would become the bedrock of film over the next century, becoming more popular than even they could predict.

2. George Méliès magic accident 

Progress came in short order not long after the Lumières’ success with their films. Before long, filmmakers began experimenting with cutting between two shots. This suddenly meant that films could allow for more than one perspective and become more narrative in nature.

US film-maker Alfred Clark was one of the first to employ cutting as a special effect of sorts in his film The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895), but it was George Méliès who would go on to push the boundaries of special effects. Méliès was fascinated with stage magic and illusion shows but his interest was piqued when he went to a screening of one of the Lumières’ films. He bought his own camera and while filming a street scene, the film momentarily jammed. When he later projected his film, the mechanical error somehow made a van transform instantly into a hearse, and pedestrians suddenly switched directions and even genders.

This accident led to Méliès experimenting with not just practical effects but manipulating the film itself to create effects and animations. Méliès would go on to create more than 500 films with visual and special effect sequences, including the still celebrated A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune, 1902).

Many filmmakers would go on to build on Méliès’ work. For example, Surrealist artists Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel used creative editing to great effect in their film An Andalusian Dog (Un chien andalou, 1929), constructing a ‘stream of consciousness’ narrative from seemingly random scenes. The film was considered a landmark in experimental film.

3. From Silence to Sound: The Jazz Singer and Snow White 

While sound design is a key element of films today, even claiming its own category at many of the prestigious film awards the industry hosts, it was a challenge in the early days of cinema. The silent film era had been a golden age for actors who were called on to deploy great physical dexterity and expression, but sound was on its way in.

There were plenty of rudimentary forays into the integration of moving image with sound, but it didn’t take hold until the 1920s. Sound-on-film technology allowed for recording sound on a side strip, recorded during filming to ensure it corresponded to the image. It took some finetuning but eventually became the industry standard.

As sound was an expensive endeavour, studios were worried if audiences would be receptive to this new technology. Some feature films played with a synchronous music soundtrack, but it was The Jazz Singer (1927) that changed their minds. Though it only featured a few scenes of synchronized dialogue, the film was a commercial success as audiences flocked to see it.
The ability to have synchronized sound opened the doors not just for traditional films but for animation. Walt Disney had already set up shop in Hollywood as a cartoonist, and just a year after The Jazz Singer debuted his animated short Steamboat Willie (1928) − the first animation with synchronized sound.

Disney followed up this impressive feat with more musical short films, which proved incredibly popular. However, it was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) that would usher in a new era of film. The first animated feature film with synchronized sound, Snow White went on to be a commercial and critical success, proving that the marriage between animation and sound synchronization was a winning combination.

4. Challenging the norms of the 1950s and 1960s 

Cinema had come a long way by the end of the Second World War, and in the aftermath, there was a huge cultural shift across the industry that began to reflect in motion pictures. A new generation of filmmakers brought with them new ideas and a desire to break free from outdated attitudes.

Films like On the Waterfront (1954) or Rebel Without a Cause (1955) featured disillusioned protagonists trapped in a stifling environment. Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) challenged attitudes to sex onscreen by featuring cross-dressing, sexual innuendo and references to homosexuality. In a bold move, it was released without the approval of the Motion Picture Production Code and went on to be the one of the largest grossing films that year. The lead actors in each of these films were also proponents of Method acting, a newer style that challenged the more classical techniques and encouraged actors to go beyond the norm in embracing roles.

Though it was the younger generations who welcomed these changes, even established players were keen to try new things. Alfred Hitchcock had been directing films since 1925, but Psycho (1960) is arguably his most recognizable work, playing with the conventions of narrative, sexuality and violence on screen. Even the popular musical had a transformation with West Side Story (1961), blending the Broadway musical with a newer grittier film style that audiences clamoured for.

The 1960s also saw a gritty and ambiguous protagonist in Clint Eastwood, who collaborated with Sergio Leone on his Dollar trilogy: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). As ‘the man with no name’, Eastwood represented a morally ambiguous character who better represented the changing times and overtook John Wayne’s good guy cowboy as an iconic character.

5. Jaws, Star Wars and the rise of the Blockbuster 

Today’s film enthusiasts are well versed in the concept of a blockbuster, but prior to the release of Jaws in 1975, it was an alien concept. There had previously been popular films that appealed to a mass audience, but Jaws was a juggernaut that redefined the industry.

Test screenings were a common industry tool used to gauge a film’s potential and had been in practice since the 1920s. The early audience reaction to Jaws indicated enthusiasm for the film, so the studio began an unprecedented marketing campaign and a wider opening weekend release. Spielberg’s thriller would go on to break box-office records across the globe.

Star Wars quickly followed in 1977, smashing Jaws’ records despite being a science-fiction film, which weren’t as popular at the time. However, the modest initial release had such an enthusiastic response that the studio increased the number of screens showing the film and launched tie-in merchandise as a form of ancillary revenue stream, further adding to the film’s explosive success.

The idea of what makes a blockbuster is tried and tested every year with new films − just like Star Wars, sometimes the films that see huge box office successes are unexpected. Get Out (2017) was something of a sleeper hit, surpassing all expectations and helping to reinvent the horror genre. On the other hand, the ever-popular superhero genre − like the all-conquering Marvel Cinematic Universe or Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy − is nearly synonymous with the big summer blockbuster and continues to bring audiences to the cinema.
Discover more pivitol moments from film history with A Chronology of Film, available now.

Keen film enthusiast? Explore our reading list of books about film.