From Magic Lanterns to Nickelodeons: The Origins of the Film Industry, Part I

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For early movie-goers, film was a magical experience, but also sometimes a crowded and stuffy one.  From the magic lantern shows of the eighteenth century to the heyday of the nickelodeon in the twentieth, in this episode we'll look at the origins of film as a medium and the early decades of the film industry.  


Podcaster: Nathan

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Further Reading

Charles Musser.  The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907, Vol. 1.  Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994.  

Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell.  Film History: An Introduction.  3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009.  

Gerben Bakker.  Entertainment Industrialised: The Emergence of the International Film Industry, 1890-1940.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.  

Geoffrey Nowell-Smith.  The Oxford History of World Cinema.  Oxford University Press, 1999.

Dutch site dedicated to magic lanterns, including many replicas and photos of magic lantern slides

Related Content

The Rise of the Studios: The Origins of the Film Industry, Part II

This episode is part of our Film History Series.

Music by Kevin MacLeod (www.incompetech.com)

Zoetrope

A Trip to the Moon, Georges Méliès (1902)

Edison Kinetoscope films (1894-96)

Lumière Brothers' cinematograph films (the first in the video is the famous Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895)