One of the most famous film technologies of the 20th century, was the Nickelodeon. Famously nicknamed after peep-shows merely because you spent 5minutes watching a film with one eye. This short feature film consisted of a number of stills moving at extreme pace. Just when you start enjoying your movie, it was already time for the next person to watch but it still "did for the eye what the phonograph did for the ear."[History of Edison Motion Pictures] Certainly this must have been satisfactory for an audience that did not have cinema houses like we do now. So from one-eye-individual watching to full house crowds, films have developed into a social activity that not only represented the world in motion but entertained; challenged society; influenced relationships, ideas, lifestyles and much more.
Now Nickelodeons are artifects while cinema houses expand, but how long will it last? Technology allowed the existence of Nickelodeon peep-shows and ended it, and now is allowing more than just cinema houses, but computers, buses, airplanes, homes and even cellphones have become the new venue for film watching. With that shaping culture and the way films are watched and made.
4 comments:
its sad to see with the ptolifiration of technology we see the decline in film watching in cinemas!! people only seem to watch movies on their computer or a home i know movies where never really a social activity because you never really solcialised at the movies but it was still a reason to see others and now people have become more and more anti social!!
I think Alistair has a good point with regards to the decline in cinema attendance. On some level however, even still movie and tv for that matter acts as a mediator for social interaction don't you think? A simple example would be a group of friends talking about a new movie that just came out... or something that they all may have watched sometime ago. Long story short, although you don't socialize there and then while watching this content, you still speak about it afterward right? Anti-social.. I think not!
Sach(",)
i have to agree with sach on this one.movie watching is not becoming anti social per say. ithink its still a means of communication amongst people...only just last week a film was recommended to me and if people were so preoccupied with being antisocial i dont think i would have been advised to go and see this movie in the first place...by the way the film is "why did i get married" and i to are sending out an invitation.go and see it.
I think that although film watching may be moving away from the cinema, it is finding a new venue in home cinema. This provides a comfortable and safe venue for socializing, and allows for more people to get together at a lower cost. Being able to pause, rewind, fast forward etc we have more control over the veiwing, making it more convenient (think of toilet breaks:))With surround sound, large flat screen TV's and high definition picture, the home veiwing experience can equal of exceed the excitement of the cinema.
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