ABSTRACT
Cinema was born in the 1890s, the ‘last machine’ of Victorian invention.1 British inventors had been involved in experiments with photography and Thomas Edison’s ‘peep show’ kinetoscope was developed in America with the assistance of Englishman W. K. Dickson. The first public cinema exhibition in Britain is recorded as being organised by a representative of the French producers, the Lumière brothers, at Marlborough Hall in Regent Street, London, on 21 February 1896. British manufacturer Robert Paul invented the first film projector to be placed on the open market, also in 1896. It was not yet clear that America would dominate the world’s cinema screens and for a time British manufacturers of projectors and cameras were able to hold their own against foreign competition. Concentrating on supply-ing its vast home market, the American film industry had not yet begun its aggressive export drive. It was not until the early 1900s that American manufacturers began to take the entrepreneurial initiative, in close competition with the French companies Gaumont and Pathé. In many ways, how - ever, the history of early film was about international experiment, with similar techniques and developments towards the institutional mode of representation occurring in many different countries at different times.2 The popular themes used in magic lantern exhibitions featured in early films and there was a great deal of thematic and stylistic repetition, particularly in early French, American and British productions.
