The Dream That Kicks : The Prehistory and Early Years of Cinema in Britain

The Dream the Kicks is a classic account of the prehistory and early years of cinema in Britain. In this new paperback edition, which has been thoroughly revised to take into account recent scholarship of early cinema, Michael Chanan provides a fasciniating account of the rich and hitherto hidden history of the origins of film. Chanan demonstrates that the theory of 'the persistence of vision', which led to the invention of moving pictures, has been superceded by modern scientific findings. In its place, he puts forward a theory of invention as a type of bricolage , and shows that cinematography was a product of the forces of nineteenth century capitalism. He discusses the wealth of influences, both popular and bourgeois, on the culture of early cinema, including diorama, the magic lantern, itinerant entertainers and music hall. He looks at the relationship between film and photography, and considers the nascent film business, the ways in which early cinema was received by its audiences and the developing aesthetics of cinema in its first fifteen years. The Dream the Kicks is a classic account of the prehistory and early years of cinema in Britain. In this new paperback edition, which has been thoroughly revised to take into account recent scholarship of early cinema, Michael Chanan provides a fasciniating account of the rich and hitherto hidden history of the origins of film.
Chanan demonstrates that the theory of 'the persistence of vision', which led to the invention of moving pictures, has been superceded by modern scientific findings. In its place, he puts forward a theory of invention as a type of bricolage, and shows that cinematography was a product of the forces of nineteenth century capitalism. He discusses the wealth of influences, both popular and bourgeois, on the culture of early cinema, including diorama, the magic lantern, itinerant entertainers and music hall. He looks at the relationship between film and photography, and considers the nascent film business, the ways in which early cinema was received by its audiences and the developing aesthetics of cinema in its first fifteen years. Book Cover 1 Half-Title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Author’s note (first edition) 10 Preface to the second edition 12 Acknowledgements 14 Out Eunuch Dreams 16 Part 1 The arrival of moving pictures 18 Chapter 1 The site of film 22 Chapter 2 The sight of film 39 Part 2 The dialectic of invention 50 Chapter 3 The conditions of invention 52 Chapter 4 Theories of perception 58 Chapter 5 Photographic development 70 Chapter 6 Patent business 77 Chapter 7 Celluloid muse 88 Part 3 Culture and economics 98 Chapter 8 The production of consumption 100 Chapter 9 Music hall and popular culture 114 Chapter 10 Culture and politics in the middle classes 136 Part 4 The early years 148 Chapter 11 Market competition and industrial growth 150 Chapter 12 The foundations of the film idiom 183 Chapter 13 Epilogue: The dream that kicks 219 Bibliography 224 Index 230 The author here provides an account of the rich, but hitherto hidden history of the origins of film. He demonstrates that the theory of 'the persistence of vision' has been superseded by modern scientific findings The Cinematograph, which is the invention of MM. A. and L. Lumiere, is a contrivance belonging to the same family as Edison's Kinetoscope and the old 'Wheel of Life', but in a rather higher stage of development.