Celebrating 1895. The Centenary Of Cinema

Celebrating 1895 includes twenty-seven of the finest papers presented at the centenary of cinema conference hosted by the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, Bradford in June 1995. The first part of the collection brings together papers that discuss the reception of film as a new technology in the early part of the twentieth century, or characterise institutional agendas that were developed for the preservation of the medium. The second part of the collection focuses on exhibition and audiences, and includes a number of essays that challenge our understanding of the exhibition context. The relation of early film to popular culture forms the organising principle for the third part of the book, which concern is developed, in the following section, through examining the ways in which film as a new medium threw earlier definitions of the public and private spheres into disarray. The final part of the collection examines the ways in which issues in the formal development of the medium have responded to initiatives arising from the 'new film history'. The essays included in Celebrating 1895 advance and refine many of the paradigms available to the historias of early cinema, and indicate ways in which future investigations may be framed. The anthology provides an authoritative and stimulating overview of current research in the field, and constitutes a major publication in this exciting area of film scholarship.