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Volume 3 of A History of Early Film examines critical responses to early cinema, including the impassioned thoughts of one of the first film critics, the American poet Vachel Lindsay and considers some contemporary judgements of the social aspects of moving pictures. The volume also includes the 1917 report The Cinema: Its Present Position and Future Possibilities...which provides a unique record of the attitudes towards the cinema by its British audiences exhibitors, producers, guardians of morality and those responsible for licensing.
List of contents
1. 'A Plea for the Long Film' L. Stanford Cook, The Bioscope, 12 October 1911 2. 'Interview with the Dramatic Critic of the Morning and Evening 'Standard' The Bioscope, 26 October 1911 3. 'The Picture of Crowd Splendor' Vachel Lindsay, The Art of the Moving Picture (1915) 4. 'Education and the Bioscope' The Bioscope, 11 February 1909 5. 'Will Moving Pictures Prevent War?' The Bioscope, 12 October 1911 6. 'The Cinematograph in Church' Amateur Photographer, 19 August 1912 7. 'Sacred Films' Amateur Photographer, 11 November 1912 8. Focussing the Universe, Montagu A. Pyke (n.d. c. 1910) 9. The Child and the Cinematograph Show and the Picture Post-Card Evil, with a note on the cinematograph by the Headmaster of Eton, Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley (1913) 10. Picture Postcard (drawing): Special Charley [sic] Chaplin Film: The Girlies Go to the Picture Show Because They Like a Lark - and if they've got a boy with them it's 'thumbs up in the dark' 11. Picture Postcard (drawing): Couple in Cinema: 'What Could be Nicer?' 12. Picture Postcard (photograph): Man and Two Women in a Studio 'Cinema' Setting: 'One meets Such Nice Girls at the Picture Palace!' 13. Picture Postcard (photograph): Two Couples in a Studio 'Cinema' Setting: 'At the Cinema' 14. The Cinema: Its Present Position and Future Possibilities Being the Report of and Chief Evidence Taken by the Cinema Commission of Inquiry, Instituted by the National Council of Public Morals (1917).
About the author
Stephen Herbert trained as a media technician, and spent many years in film exhibition and production. His interest in the origins of the moving image led to Stephen co-editing the influential book and website
Who's Who of Victorian Cinema, and contributions to academic journals. He ran the small press The Projection Box, and has recently retired as a freelance museum consultant.
Summary
Volume 3 of A History of Early Film examines critical responses to early cinema, including the impassioned thoughts of one of the first film critics, the American poet Vachel Lindsay and considers some contemporary judgements of the social aspects of moving pictures.
