Cinema of attractions

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The cinema of attractions , rarely also attraction cinema , describes above all the initial phase of cinema up to around 1907.

purpose

At that time, filmmakers were primarily interested in staging a spectacle, the plot was subordinate to that. One saw the potential of this new art of filming primarily in making images visible. This utilization of the visual, this act of showing and presenting are the clearest characteristics of the attraction cinema. The display took precedence over the narrative aspect. Early film production was not about telling a story or creating a new diegetic world, but primarily showing factual reports. Like the Lumière brothers , the aim was to bring the world closer to the audience through travel films and current affairs.

Relation to the viewer

The relationship to the audience and the direct stimulus were also essential . The audience felt directly addressed by the spectacle. The performers kept looking straight into the camera (this was later banned as it destroyed the illusion of a self-contained world). At that time it was used to establish contact with the audience. It wants to flaunt its visibility and not be a fictional world. For example , comedians make faces for the camera , magicians bow, a woman makes an erotic appearance, winks and grins at the audience, etc.

Projectionist

Another characteristic of the cinema of attractions at that time were cinema projectionists. These offered various additional services such as sound effects and spoken comments. There were also real demonstration experiences that were reminiscent of the attractions of a fairground . The showing of the films itself was already an attraction at that time. One marveled above all at the machines shown there and less at the films. The advertising posters did not lure with the film titles, but with the names of the projection machines, for example the Cinématograph the Biograph . Cinematographic manipulations such as slow motion , reverse motion , etc. alone made the appealing and interesting. The effect of magnification, the close-up, was not used for scenic punctuation, but was an attraction in and of itself.

Telling stories

The aim was to arouse the visual curiosity of the people through the cinema of attractions and to provide pleasure by means of an exciting spectacle , whether fictional or documentary. The cinema of attractions was primarily about the ability to show something, in contrast to narrative cinema. This developed from 1907 and clearly took the conventional theater as its model. From then on it was primarily about telling stories and creating a fictional world . Looking into the camera became taboo and the focus shifted to elements of dramatic expression and insights into the psychology of characters.

Narration

The excitement of storytelling and the concept of showing don't have to be mutually exclusive. The element of attraction has not disappeared, but becomes effective under the cover of narration . The attraction cinema is therefore not to be seen as a counterpart to the narrative cinema . Both can also be combined with one another.

literature

  • Tom Gunning: The Cinema of Attractions. Early Films, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde . In: Early Cinema. Ed. V. Thomas Elsaesser. London 1997. ISBN 0-85170-244-9

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