Cinema starts in the cave, passes through the shadow play and early illustrated tomes and the fresco, dazzles in the richest stained glass, comes out on the canvas and crackles in the camp fire before filling the stage and bursting onto the film-house wall much larger than life. It thrills the eye and mesmerises the mind. It’s been through pinhole, daguerreotype and calotype, and dry-plate, wet-plate, Kodacolor and celluloid, Cinerama and Cinemascope, Vistavision and Bitumen of Judea and the temples of Luxor!
It was the greatest art form of the Twentieth Century – even though painting produced Picasso and Matisse. It gave us Fellini, Truffaut and Kurosawa. It gave us Godard, Eisenstein and Welles. It gave us Tarkovsky and a list too long to mention here. It gave us New Wave and Verité. And in 2019 a great idiot on BBC Radio 4 said that very few films are works of art…
The End.
