Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
‘It’s not so much being seduced by a story. It’s the thrill of seeing in itself.’
During the first film screenings in the 1890s, viewers marvelled at moving images that had an unprecedented power to transport them to faraway places in an instant. At first, these shorts – which included glimpses of everything from Niagara Falls to elephants in India – had no narrative structure. Audiences flocked to theatres simply for the novel experience of seeing people and places, some familiar and others deeply strange, rendered lifelike and immediate before their eyes. And, as the film curator Dave Kehr explains in this video from New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the images were hardly the grainy and frantically paced footage that has become synonymous with ‘old film’ today. Rather, viewed in their original form on large screens and prior to decades of degradation, these movies were vivid and realistic. In particular, early 68mm film, which was less practical than 35mm film and thus used less frequently, delivered startlingly lifelike impressions of distant realities to early moviegoers.
Via Kottke
Director: Sean Yetter
Website: The Museum of Modern Art
video
Social psychology
What happened when a crypto scam swept over a sleepy town in the Caucasus
18 minutes
video
Gender
A catchy tune explains the world’s ‘isms’ – according to your mum doing the laundry
5 minutes
video
Architecture
A 3D rendering of the Colosseum captures its architectural genius and symbolic power
17 minutes
video
Human rights and justice
Surreal, dazzling visuals form an Iranian expat’s tribute to defiance back home
10 minutes
video
Language and linguistics
Do button-pushing dogs have something new to say about language?
9 minutes
video
Art
When East met West in the images of an overlooked, original photographer
9 minutes
video
Values and beliefs
Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi
7 minutes
video
Consciousness and altered states
‘I want me back’ – after a head injury, Nick struggles with his altered reality
7 minutes
video
Making
On the Norwegian coast, a tree is transformed into a boat the old-fashioned way
6 minutes