The history of film chronicles the development of a visual art form created using film technologies that began in the late 19th century.
The following is an overview of the events of 1896 in film, including a list of films released and notable births.
The culture of Portugal designates the cultural practices and traditions of the Portuguese people. It is rooted on the interactions between many different civilizations that inhabited the area during the past millennia. From prehistoric cultures, to its Pre-Roman civilizations, passing through its contacts with the Phoenician-Carthaginian world, the Roman period, the Germanic invasions of the Suebi, Buri and Visigoths, Viking incursions, Sephardic Jewish settlement, and finally, the Moorish Umayyad invasion of Hispania and the subsequent expulsion during the Reconquista, all have influenced the country's culture and history.
Birt Acres was an American and British photographer and film pioneer. Among his contributions to the early film industry are the first working 35 mm camera in Britain (Wales), and Birtac, the first daylight loading home movie camera and projector. He also directed a number of early silent films.
Actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that uses footage of real events, places, and things, a predecessor to documentary film. Unlike documentaries, actuality films are not structured into a larger narrative or coherent whole. During the era of early cinema, actualities—usually lasting no more than a minute or two and usually assembled together into a program by an exhibitor—were just as popular and prominent as their fictional counterparts. The line between "fact" and "fiction" was not as prominent in early cinema as it would become once documentaries became the predominant non-fiction filmmaking form. Actuality as a film genre is related to still photography.
The Cinema of Portugal started with the birth of the medium in the late 19th century. Cinema was introduced in Portugal in 1896 with the screening of foreign films and the first Portuguese film was Saída do Pessoal Operário da Fábrica Confiança, made in the same year. The first movie theater opened in 1904 and the first scripted Portuguese film was O Rapto de Uma Actriz (1907). The first all-talking sound film, A Severa, was made in 1931. Starting in 1933, with A Canção de Lisboa, the Golden Age would last the next two decades, with films such as O Pátio das Cantigas (1942) and A Menina da Rádio (1944). Aniki-Bóbó (1942), Manoel de Oliveira's first feature film, marked a milestone, with a realist style predating Italian neorealism by a few years. In the 1950s the industry stagnated. The early 1960s saw the birth of the Cinema Novo movement, showing realism in film, in the vein of Italian neorealism and the French New Wave, with films like Dom Roberto (1962) and Os Verdes Anos (1963). The movement became particularly relevant after the Carnation Revolution of 1974. In 1989, João César Monteiro's Recordações da Casa Amarela won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and in 2009, João Salaviza's Arena won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Several other Portuguese films have been in competition for major film awards like the Palme d'Or and the Golden Bear. João Sete Sete (2006) was the first Portuguese animated feature film. Portuguese cinema is significantly supported by the State, with the government's Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual giving films financial support.
Robert William Paul was an English pioneer of film and scientific instrument maker.
Boca do Inferno is a chasm located in the seaside cliffs close to the Portuguese city of Cascais, in the District of Lisbon. The seawater has access to the deep bottom of the chasm and vigorously strikes its rocky walls, making it a popular tourist attraction. The cave was the first to be depicted in moving pictures, in the 1896 British film A Sea Cave Near Lisbon, which shows waves breaking at the mouth of the cave.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to film:
Rough Sea at Dover is an 1895 British short black-and-white silent film, shot by Birt Acres.
Hennessy is a 1975 British thriller film directed by Don Sharp and starring Rod Steiger, Trevor Howard, Lee Remick, Richard Johnson, Peter Egan, Stanley Lebor, Patrick Stewart and a young Patsy Kensit, the last two in their film debuts.
In the early history of cinema, trick films were short silent films designed to feature innovative special effects.
The Big Swallow is a 1901 British silent comic trick film, directed by James Williamson, featuring a man, irritated by the presence of a photographer, who solves his dilemma by swallowing him and his camera whole. The three-shot trick film is, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "one of the most important early British films in that it was one of the first to deliberately exploit the contrast between the eye of the camera and of the audience watching the final film".
Blackfriars Bridge is an 1896 British short black-and-white silent actuality film, directed by Robert W. Paul, featuring top-hatted pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages passing over Blackfriars Bridge, London. The film was, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "taken from the southern end looking northwards over the Thames by R.W. Paul in July 1896," and, "screened as part of his Alhambra Theatre programme shortly afterwards, certainly no later than 31 August"
The Magic Sword; or, A Medieval Mystery is a 1901 British silent fantasy trick film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a mediaeval knight battling to save a damsel from an ogre and a witch. The film, "is impressively elaborate, with single shots containing multiple trick effects achieved through complex double exposures and superimpositions," and according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "was so startling that it moved the legendary stage illusionist J.N. Maskelyne to describe The Magic Sword as the finest trick film made up to then."
The Twins' Tea Party is an 1896 British short silent actuality film, produced and directed by Robert W. Paul. The film "was one of the very first 'facials'," which according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline was "a popular genre in early British cinema that exploited what to 1896 audiences was the astonishing novelty of being able to see moving images of recognisable people in medium close-up as they reacted to a particular situation." John Barnes, author of The Beginnings of the Cinema in England, adds that "this charming one-shot film of two infant girls reluctantly sharing tea was one of the most popular items exhibited in R.W. Paul's programmes at the Alhambra Theatre in 1896."
Comic Costume Race is an 1896 British short black-and-white silent actuality film, directed by Robert W. Paul, featuring comic costume scramble at the Music Hall Sports on 14 July 1896 at Herne Hill, London. The music hall sports day was an annual charity event consisting of other events such as egg and spoon races and three-legged races. The film is the best surviving pictorial record of the Music Hall Sports. It is not known who the race participants are.
Army Life; or, How Soldiers Are Made: Mounted Infantry is a 1900 British short black-and-white silent propaganda actuality film, directed by Robert W. Paul, featuring the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment riding over a plain. The film, which premiered on 18 September 1900 at the Alhambra Theatre in London, England, "is all that appears to remain of one of R.W. Paul's most ambitious projects," which, according to Micahael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "had it survived in a more complete form," "would undoubtedly be considered one of the most important precursors of the modern documentary."
The Rescue on the River was an 1896 French short silent film directed by Georges Méliès.
