The Origins of Cinema   

Cinema was the medium of the 20^th century – a global mode of entertainment that engaged and captivated millions. In this class Matthew Solomon examines the 19^th century origins of cinema in France and the United States, including discussions of a number of films produced before 1900 by Louis Lumière, Georges Méliès, Thomas Edison, and their collaborators. Edison and Lumière have competing claims to the “invention” of moving pictures, though each had different ideas about what this innovation actually comprised. Méliès was a former shoe manufacturer as well as an illusionist and a caricaturist who immediately used the new medium to create visual illusions and what he called “artificially arranged scenes.” Edison and Méliès constructed studios for making films and, together