Yesterday I incorporated the work of Eadweard Muybridge. He is the filmmaker that most fascinates me. The impact of his work is still obvious – the techniques that Muybridge originated over 100 years ago are still used today. Watch any instant replay or breakdown of any play in any sport and you’ll see Muybridge’s touch. Watch the films of Peter Greenaway, Ken McMullen, Hollis Frampton, or any handful of music videos or TV commercials and you’ll find Muybridge. Whether or not Muybridge is the inventor of cinema is still debated. Most say Edison. I always say Muybridge.
Muybridge created his famous Animals in Locomotion in Philadelphia between 1884 and 1887. Cinema is native to Philadelphia.
Muybridge’s work represents one end of the cinematic spectrum. Siegmund Lubin, Philadelphia’s Polish immigrant optician, represents the other. Lubin opened his first shop on 8th St in 1885 just as Muybridge photographed a nude woman tossing a handkerchief.
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| Muybridge Motion Study |
Lubin saw Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Shortly afterward, he began making and exhibiting films. Lubin started a studio in Center City where he turned out film after film. He even opened a studio in Los Angeles. Lubin made over 100 films. However, by 1917, Lubin and his studio system were finished.
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| Lubin Studio with Glass Roof |
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| Lubinville |
A documentary about Lubin: www.kingofthemovies.com
In the 1920's, Philadelphia saw the birth of the American avant-garde. A group known as The Cinema Crafters of Philadelphia was founded in 1928 - their goal was to "pioneer experiments in the new field of photoplay production." One of the Crafters, Lewis Jacobs, began Experimental Cinema magazine. Other Cinema Crafters included Tibby Lear, Jo Gerson, Betty John, and Louis Hirshman.
In the 1920's, Philadelphia saw the birth of the American avant-garde. A group known as The Cinema Crafters of Philadelphia was founded in 1928 - their goal was to "pioneer experiments in the new field of photoplay production." One of the Crafters, Lewis Jacobs, began Experimental Cinema magazine. Other Cinema Crafters included Tibby Lear, Jo Gerson, Betty John, and Louis Hirshman.
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| The Cinema Crafters of Philadelphia (1929) |
Etting's first film, Poem 8.
Etting's second film, Oramunde.
Etting’s Phoenix Rising and Cesar Pelli’s Cira Centre have a cinematic quality. Phoenix Rising works like an early magic lantern – the sun hits the peculiar form and casts a slowly animated shadow on its circular base. The base looks like a roll of celluloid.
Pelli’s all-glass tower appears like strips of film stacked on top of another – each window a film frame. The viewer can watch the office workers move in Muybridgian fashion; an ordinary (Muybridgian) task becomes cinematic wonder: a woman carrying a stack of papers, a man answering a telephone, five people walking toward the conference room.
The earliest forms of Cinema have never left Philadelphia.
The earliest forms of Cinema have never left Philadelphia.
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