The Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw described the period as “a glorious and revolutionary time for cinephilia”.īut the 1900s marked the embryonic moments of the cinematic medium a wave of creative trial and error before the dust settled. Fast forward 100 years and the rapid evolution of digital filmmaking that took off in the 2000s, occurring alongside the rise of various internet technologies, was also influential for both production and exhibition. The 1900s, for instance, heralded a period of intense experimentation, as artists played around with film cameras and editing machines for the first time. Other decades and periods are significant for various reasons. They include artistic movements that played a huge role in developing cinematic language, the formation of industry initiatives still hugely influential today, the introduction of perhaps the most significant technical development since the projection of moving images (hint: it involves another sense – the one experienced through your ears), as well as the enduring impact of the films themselves. There are several reasons why the decade that began a century ago saw the kind of transformative change that will never come again. Yet even when several factors are considered, the needle swings towards one decade as a period of unparalleled change: the ‘Roaring Twenties’. If technological and industry-based changes are included as well as artistic output, however, the task is easier and the answers more conclusive. If film noir is my favourite genre, for example, I am more likely to recognise – or overstate – the significance of the era from which it emanated. If we view decades solely in terms of artistic quality, then personal preference, inevitably, comes into play. Is Napoleon the greatest film ever made? Both of these genres made a big impact on cinematic storytelling, but which decade tipped the axis of the motion picture medium in the most profound ways? The 1940s and ‘50s constituted peak periods for US film noir, for example, while the convention-upturning French New Wave blossomed in the 1960s. Since motion pictures first arrived in the late 19th Century, each new decade has heralded movements and styles that influenced the development of cinema.
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