Moving images are so pervasive in our lives today that it is hard to imagine a time when people did without them. They’ve become an essential element in the way we communicate, the way we think. They’ve certainly influenced every other form of art in some way.

When photography was invented in 1839, many artists were repulsed by the new phenomenon. The visual arts of painting and sculpture had reigned for millennia. A painting wasn’t just a reproduction — it transformed the objective reality which it portrayed into something new, a result which contained a mysterious quality that, for lack of a better phrase, was a part of the artist’s soul. The new invention, which reflected reality back to us through a mechanical device, seemed cold and frightening.

People have always remembered, and tried to preserve and transmit their memories through time. History was recorded through the written word. The wisdom of the past was transmitted through the myth, the story, and later the epic poem, drama and novel.

I doubt if I am the only person who, while watching an old movie, has had the morbid thought occur to him that “Everyone in the film is dead now”. Yet, they are still on the screen, moving, laughing, dancing, just as they did when alive.

The Lumieres began to show their short films in 1895. They were a sensation. Imagine if you can the astonishment experienced by the audiences, to see a projected moving image on a large screen. One effect was fright. It is said that when the Lumieres showed their film of the arrival of a train at a station, the audience jumped back from the screen as if they were going to be run over by the oncoming train.

Internet: <www.cinescene.com> (adapted).