Theatre to Cinema: Stage Pictorialism and the Early Feature Film

by Ben Brewster, Lea Jacobs

This is the first book-length study for nearly fifty years of the relations between early cinema and nineteenth-century theatre. Incorporating the results of recent reconsiderations of early cinema, Brewster explores what features of nineteenth-century theatre early film-makers borrowed or
adapted, and the ways specific characteristics of cinema inflected these borrowings. Theatre to Cinema is a seminal work which will profoundly alter our understanding of early cinema.

Genres: Film

Paperback

First published May 28, 1998

Reviews

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, i love geeky silent film books like this. The authors trace stage "pictorialism" into early films (pretty much pre 1920), focusing on acting technique. They take issue with Pearson's Eloquent Gestures (also a great book) in that they find that the gestural style of the 19th century stage was much more fluid and less conventionalized than its reputation, and served not only to heighten emotion but, when correctly blocked, to focus attention on each performer at the appropriate moment. They feel that, although the frozen pose tableau is seldom used even in early film, that the basic gestural style carried over for quite a while, particularly in European films, and was favored where long takes and slow editing tempo was the norm. This was somewhat less so in American films, where trying to cram so much story into a short film made gesturing more rapid and exaggerated.They feel that as Griffith started breaking down scenes into individual shots into what became classic Hollywood-style analytical editing, that forced a change into a more minimalist acting style as the camera was closer and the editing carried more of the emotional and narrative weight. The book also contains detailed comparisons of film versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin with each other and with 19th century stage prompt books. There's also a big section on the mechanics of staging and proportions of 19th century theatres which i found less interesting than the other parts.