An interesting thought about history

Birth of a Nation, 1915

The first full-length (12-reel) feature film ever made was Birth of a Nation. It was released in 1915. Thus 2015 marked the first centennial of a movie. Birth of a Nation is now 105 years old. That sounds strange to someone my age, who went to film school (USC, Los Angeles) when movies were still considered a new art form.

When I was in film school (1983-4) even the very first experiments in cameras and projectors were relatively recent. For instance, the first Nickelodeon opened on Broadway in 1894, only 90 years earlier than I entered USC.

But now we are in a new era, where we must begin to mark films not in terms of their decade, but the century in which they were made.

My daughter Megan is 24. When she is 84 (in 2080), the following films will all be over 100 years old.

The Godfather, 1972

The Godfather
Taxi Driver
Star Wars
Jaws
Alien
Grease
Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I find that remarkable. These films still feel so 'new' to me, technically and artistically.

However, time moves on. What was 'high tech' (the cutting edge as they called it) when I was in filmschool in the 1980s is now totally obsolete. Words like bipacking, rodoscoping, optical printer, G-mattes, burn-ins, cell animation, cutting room floor, flatbed, moviola, work print, negative cutter, are all now archaic.

"Films" are no longer shot on film.
The silver screen is no longer silver.

Equipment we learned on in film school in the 1980s is now relegated to museums.

Film maker editing on a moviola

I literally learned to edit 16mm film on a device just like this, called a moviola. Moviolas had, at that time, been in use in Hollywood for more than half a century.

It is not just movies that are now 100 years old. WWI ended over 100 years ago. When my daughter is a mere 40 years old, she will be able to reflect that black and white movies of Hitlers early speeches are a century old. One day men and women will look at such speeches and reflect that they are seeing a villain as he was a thousand years ago. Like watching a scratchy black and white film of the Mahabharata.

Adolf Hitler in 1933

I find that so strange.

Already, Baba's encounter with Hazrat Babajan happened over a hundred years ago. When my daughter is 74 (in 2070) even his passing will be. Remarkable how present becomes memory.