The contemporary American cinema in the 21st century has been dominated with countless of computer graphic effects and numerous camera tricks in order to make the films look presentable, action-packed, and detailed in terms of narration towards the broad audience. When John Belton argued that the purpose of the camera as a storyteller improved the quality of the films produced, it is undeniable that the existence of the cameras led to the creation of several stories some of which deals with phantasms that often requires tricks to produce magic to enthrall the audiences. Yet with this aspect, the discourse as to how these gadgets affect the viewers’ perception has not been fully addressed. Belton outlined the development of the camera as a tool for propagating pictures up to the narration aspect and it seems that compared to the radio, the camera has the ability to shape the views of the audiences based on the film presented. (Belton 10).
The invention of the camera was an important marker that established the American cinema. In the early days, the Lumiere brothers developed the very first motion camera that allowed them to capture moving pictures in monochrome tints. Colored cameras was not invented until the latter phase of the 20th century but the amazing feat of the Lumiere in innovating the camera from a tool that captures still images to moving objects became the mark of the film industry worldwide. Originally, the film produced by the Lumiere was further improvised by the American inventor Thomas Edison when he directed his very first silent film titled Boxing Cats in 1894 wherein a man in front of the camera can be seen acting as a referee to two cats with boxing gloves fighting each other on the make shift ring. At that time, this was already an amazing invention since the majority of the people do not have the idea how the technology occurred or how it images are transmitted. By the time of the Roaring 20s, the film industry thrived and most of the men and women became actors and actresses in many silent films produced at that time. The only effects that allowed audiences to interpret the actions of these mime films were the music played by the piano master to highlight the mood of the story. The music adds depth to the otherwise boring and confusing story of the mime films. Sioux Ghost Dance was another film directed by Thomas Edison in the late 19th century and despite the fact that it is a black and white film, the images are seen clearly and quite sharp; a truly remarkable invention produced aside from radio. Aside from this, Cake walk was another mime film directed by Thomas Edison during the height of his career featuring the story derived from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin where groups of African-Americans can be seen dancing gaily in some sort of a dance music; although that remains to be deciphered because the lack of sounds makes it impossible for the audience to actually interact with the characters on the film. The actions were present and the emotions are blatantly displayed on their faces but due to the low camera quality, the film only managed to produce blurry images of people dancing merrily along with their partners and dressed in fancy white dresses. In this case, in relation to what Belton had said, the camera can establish itself as a narrator of the scene, yet judging by the modern standards of the 21st century, the silent films cannot gain an importance to the wide viewers since the lack of music or sound might cause the modern audience to get confused over the actions portrayed in the film.
In comparison with the other films produced in the early 1950s, Casablanca proves to be by far one of the most successful post-war films due to its dramatic cinematography, good character portrayal, sound effects that were slightly improvised based from its silent predecessors. In this film, there are high chances that audiences can allow themselves to interact with the film since it somehow portrays the reality unlike the previous film experimentations. In one scene from the film, the camera pans toward the characters and focuses on the rear projection on the back displaying the cars steering on the background along with horse drawn carriages; this illusion is commonly used in cinemas and is an old technique to portray the illusion of traffic towards the audience. Furthermore, this film explains a lot to the viewers about the life of the people during the World War II, one of the characters sets off to fight the Nazis from invading other countries. This film was a romantic story and also informative for media students who wanted to learn the old style camera techniques and movie styles of the films way back in the 1950s. In addition, Hitchcock’s film titled Vertigo was also popular since the director created the illusion of a wide distance by slowly moving the camera backward so that the foreground becomes a tiny part of the vast background. This was used in the film as well to create the illusion of longer distances especially in narrow corridors. The slow panning of the camera contributes to the decrease of scale of the subject while the foreground becomes overwhelmed by the background to the point that the foreground ends up being ‘swallowed’ by the background. As a conclusion, the trend of American cinema started only as a slow progress but due to the latest innovations in videography, the tricks and the realistic portrayal of characters became popular of course due to the presence of colored televisions and cameras.
REFERENCES
Belton, J. (2013). American Cinema/American Culture. 4th Ed. [Kindle Version]. New York: McGraw-Hill. Retrieved from Amazon.com
