"Spectral, Spectacular and Narrative: Early Cinema and its Origins" (original) (raw)

2022, Film Studies: An Introduction, Worldview Publications, New Delhi, Kolkata; 246-272 (Book Chapter)

The origin myth of cinema, associated with the first films by the Lumière brothers, has always occupied a place of immense fascination in popular imagination. From the time of the first screening of these films in 1895 to as recently as Martin Scorsese's film Hugo (2011), it is the amusing but fascinating story of the arrival of a train on screen for the first time and the astonishing responses of the people who witnessed it; ranging from hiding beneath their chairs to screaming out of the small café because they feared that the approaching train would run over them. In Hugo, Scorsese creates a universe where cinema, especially early cinema is a cherished object, introduced to us through the friendship and curiosities of two children, Hugo and Isabelle. As they enter the film academy library and begin to read about early film history, this moment of cinema's first appearance is reconstructed. The children are amused and read on with fascination. In a fresco on the ceiling, God's finger approaching Adam's, instead of granting life turns into a film projection, a montage of scenes from early films are intercut to an animated musical score but also the constant whirring sound of the projector, as cinema displays its potential and transforms into a grand storytelling medium. Through the adventures of Hugo and Isabelle, the film turns to narrativize the life, works and resurrection of early filmmaker George Méliès, a contemporary of the Lumières, in film history. Rene Tabard, the film historian whose book the children are found reading, laughs at them in disbelief when told that the Méliès he has declared dead, is very much alive. When the children insist that he is wrong, Tabard reveals to them the various film and stage objects and photographs of Méliès craft in his possession because this is the basis on which he has constructed this narrative of early film history. This entire sequence in Hugo, shifts the mode of the film, from a children's adventure to a film which underlines the core problem of film history-the lost films and missing texts of early cinema. In citing the event which is marked as the beginning of cinema, Hugo not only builds on the