
Film production usually responded with content to fit the new media, and with technical innovations (including widescreen (mainstream since the 1950s), 3D and 4D film) and more spectacular films to keep theatrical screenings attractive. Popular new media, including television (mainstream since the 1950s), home video (mainstream since the 1980s) and internet (mainstream since the 1990s) influenced the distribution and consumption of films.

Sound ended the necessity of interruptions of title cards, revolutionized the narrative possibilities for filmmakers, and became an integral part of moviemaking. Technical improvements added length (reaching 60 minutes for a feature film in 1906), synchronized sound recording (mainstream since the end of the 1920s), color (mainstream since the 1930s) and 3D (temporarily popular in the early 1950s and mainstream since the 2000s). Many effects were impossible or impractical to perform in theater plays and thus added more magic to the experience of movies. Special effects became a feature in movies since the late 1890s, popularized by Georges Méliès' fantasy films. The earliest films were in black and white, under a minute long, without recorded sound and consisted of a single shot from a steady camera.Ĭonventions toward a general cinematic language developed over the years with editing, camera movements and other cinematic techniques contributing specific roles in the narrative of films. The first decade of motion picture saw film moving from a novelty to an established mass entertainment industry. Soon film production companies and studios were established all over the world.

There had been earlier cinematographic results and screenings by others like the Skladanowsky brothers, who used their self-made Bioscop to display the first moving picture show to a paying audience on 1 November 1895 in Berlin, but they lacked either the quality, financial backing, stamina or the luck to find the momentum that propelled the cinématographe Lumière into a worldwide success. Consider this the all-encompassing cousin of our collection of traumatic dog death scenes, and see which of these are streaming on Netflix right now (if you have a strong enough stomach).The history of film as an artistic medium chronicles the development of a visual art form created using film technologies that began in the late 19th century.Īlthough the advent of film as an artistic medium is not clearly defined, the commercial, public screening of ten of Lumière brothers' short films in Paris on 28 December 1895 can be regarded as the breakthrough of projected cinematographic motion pictures. They range from the disgusting to the disturbing to the downright despicable. Whatever the case, they don’t get much more aggressive than what’s seen in the 53 most hard-to-watch scenes in movie history. It can be a scene marked by such intense violence that it’s nauseating, a conversation so uncomfortable you can’t handle the second-hand embarrassment, or some other heinous exhibitions of mankind’s darkest impulses. It’s those moments in a movie where people either cover their eyes, peek through open fingers to catch a cautious glimpse, or stare at the screen in disbelief, as if a freight train is barreling toward them and they’re frozen in fear.

They want to push the envelope so far that their viewers aren’t even sure if they’ll continue watching. Then there are those directors who don’t care about that agreement. There may be some laughs, some jolts, and possibly a tear or two, but nothing that will leave any permanent scars. There’s an unspoken agreement between moviegoers and filmmakers who make safe, mainstream fare: if the former gives the latter’s work a look, the latter won’t do anything to disrupt the viewer’s emotions beyond what’s usually called for.
