History of cinema

The essentials

Cinema developed in the late nineteenth century. On 28 December 1895, the French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière held a public screening of short films for a paying audience in Paris using their cinematographe, a device that could record, develop and project film. Their short films showed everyday scenes such as workers leaving a factory and a train arriving at a station. Lumière films were shown in Bombay in 1896, introducing cinema to India.

Key points

• Robert Flaherty made Nanook of the North (1922), about an Inuit family's life in the Arctic; he is often called the father of the documentary.
• John Grierson, a Scottish film-maker, is credited with first using the word "documentary" (in 1926, reviewing Flaherty's film Moana). He described documentary as the "creative treatment of actuality" and led the British documentary movement; his film Drifters (1929) showed the lives of herring fishermen.
• Dadasaheb Phalke (Dhundiraj Govind Phalke) made Raja Harishchandra (1913), India's first full-length feature film, a silent film based on a mythological story. He is called the father of Indian cinema.
• The Dadasaheb Phalke Award is India's highest award in cinema, given for lifetime contribution.
• Alam Ara (1931), directed by Ardeshir Irani, was India's first sound film (talkie).

Exam tips

Pair each pioneer with a film and a contribution: Lumière with the first screenings, Flaherty with Nanook, Grierson with the term "documentary", Phalke with Raja Harishchandra.

Common mistakes

Raja Harishchandra was a silent film; the first Indian talkie was Alam Ara. Flaherty made the film, but Grierson coined the word "documentary".