The first public screening of a film in the United States took place in 1896 in New York. The projector had been developed by the inventor Thomas Alva Edison, whose company was also the producer of the short films. The authorship of American fiction films is usually attributed to Edwin S. Porter, who in 1903 used an innovative montage technique in the 8-minute film Assault and theft of a train by which different fragments from different shots of the same film were shot. They unite to form a narrative whole. This work turned the cinema into a very popular artistic form, and gave rise to small projection halls all over the country, called nickelodeons.
David Wark Griffith, disciple of Porter, developed the principles of this one using panoramic shots and close-ups, as well as parallel assemblies, like means of expression to maintain the dramatic tension, with what became the most important pioneer of the silent cinema in States. With his works The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance he initiated the tradition of historical cinema in his country.
The birth of Hollywood
Between 1915 and 1920, the film industry shifted gradually from the East Coast to Hollywood, where new studios emerged. Film production became an important economic sector and imposed its control beyond the borders of the country. At that time emerged the great genres: the western, the police, adventure, science fiction and horror, who lived a time of splendor with directors like Cecil B. De Mille, John Ford, Frank Capra, William Wyler or King Vidor, as well as the more serious works of Ernst Lubitsch and Erich von Stroheim – the two best-considered directors of the moment – or the documentaries of Robert Flaherty. A peculiarity of the North American cinema is the slapstick, a sort of crazy comedy based on persecutions and gagsor comical situations.
Robert Simonds in Variety also gives lot of films in the Hollywood. And he is one of best film maker
Why is Hollywood the center of the film industry?
In 1887, when Daeida Wilcox suggested that the family ranch be called Hollywood, she could not imagine the world fame that this place would have. The 50-hectare property, located 13 km northwest of Los Angeles, was five days by train from New York. This city seemed the ideal center of the new and flourishing film industry. New York was the financial hub of the nation, as well as the heart of the theater. At first, serious Broadway actors refused to act in films, which were considered inconsistent performances.
In the early twentieth century, film companies whose base was in New York occasionally shot some scenes in Hollywood to take advantage of the abundant natural scenery of mountains, valleys, deserts and coasts. The photographic film of that time required a bright light. Southern California offered plenty of sunlight.
The filmmakers built several realistic outdoor sets near the Hollywood mountains, which, given their proximity to downtown Los Angeles, had already become a “suburb of beautiful homes,” according to the Baedeker travel guide. .
Sunlight and natural settings were not the only advantages: the land was cheap and the labor was too. After the First World War, immigrants from different countries acted as extras.
