Devices of Curiosity

Early Cinema and Popular Science

Oliver Gaycken

• Provides a comprehensive assessment of the role of early science films in shaping debates about scientific discovery, commercial entertainment, innovations in education, and intertexual cultural production
• Draws on viewings of almost 300 films, allowing for a comparative stylistic analysis that establishes both the unique formal properties of the genre as well as the antecedent sources upon which it drew
• Features case studies on British and French natural history filmmaking, American distribution, and French crime melodramas

Devices of Curiosity

Early Cinema and Popular Science

Oliver Gaycken

Description

Devices of Curiosity

Early Cinema and Popular Science

Oliver Gaycken

Table of Contents

Devices of Curiosity

Early Cinema and Popular Science

Oliver Gaycken

Author Information

Devices of Curiosity

Early Cinema and Popular Science

Oliver Gaycken

From Our Blog

What the professor saw on YouTube

The pervasiveness of digital media in contemporary, moving-image culture is transforming the way we make connections of all kinds. The recent rediscovery of the 1903 film Cheese Mites is a perfect example, as the way the film came to light could only have taken place in the last decade. Cheese Mites is a landmark of early cinema, one of the first films ever made for general audiences about a scientific topic. It belonged to a series of films called 'The Unseen World' and was made for the Charles Urban Company by F. Martin Duncan, a pioneer of microcinematography. It was a sensation in its day, capitalizing on the creepy fascination with microscopic creatures inhabiting our food and drink.

Posted on May 11, 2015

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