Correction please, or how we get into pictures

Duration: 52

Year Published: 1979

Creator: Museum of Modern Art

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Sound: sound

Description: This examination of early cinema and its evolution opens with a statement that it will explore how the mechanics of certain very primitive films (made prior to 1906) shed light on the nature of both the Language of cinema and the audience attitudes associated with it as they came to be established over the 25 years that followed. Pursuing his goal in inventive and unpredictable ways, Burch interweaves early films and anecdotes with a narrative that is re-enacted numerous times using different cinematic conventions. As the scene progresses, each time incorporating new techniques such as close-ups, sound, point-of-view shots, parallel editing and character voiceover, it is juxtaposed with several remarkable early films. These include: Workers leaving the Lumiere Factory (1895); The Explosion of a motor car (1900); How it feels to be run over (1900); What happened on twenty-third street, New York City (1901); The Ingenious soubrette (1902); The Gay shoe clerk (1903); The Bride retires (Le coucher de la mariee) (1904); The Story the Biograph told (1904); A