ABSTRACT
What we declare to be the exact age of the movies depends upon what criterion we adopt for something to count as a movie. The generic term ‘motion pictures’ names an invention claimed by various parties, in various countries around 1893, but not publicly exhibited much before 1895. Standardized public exhibition, the Nickelodeon, is usually dated from 1905. Attentive readers of this book will, however, know that the generic ‘motion pictures’ is not something I will accept as the equivalent of movies. A lot more had to happen after the invention of the machine before the medium matured. Even Munsterberg discusses such devices employed by the photoplay as the cut-away and the close-up, each of which had to be discovered and implemented, and these devices in combination are the things that make possible the replication of mental effects on the screen that is for him the movies’ unique feature. At a minimum I would demand ‘mature motion picture technique’ as the precursor of the medium of the movies. Such a criterion cannot be specified with precision and the decision to assign a date to the beginning of movies is a judgment call.
