A Space and Time Machine: Actuality Cinema in New York City, 1890s to c. 1905
Urban actuality films are short, single shot views of street scenes, skyscrapers or construction sites, or views from moving vehicles. They are, typically, regarded as simple filmic snap-shots. Conversely, early cinema is conventionally thought to be a complex hybrid medium, a crucible for the idea...
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| Format: | Thesis (University of Nottingham only) |
| Language: | English |
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2005
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10142/ |
| _version_ | 1848791039053135872 |
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| author | Walsh, John |
| author_facet | Walsh, John |
| author_sort | Walsh, John |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Urban actuality films are short, single shot views of street scenes, skyscrapers or construction sites, or views from moving vehicles. They are, typically, regarded as simple filmic snap-shots. Conversely, early cinema is conventionally thought to be a complex hybrid medium, a crucible for the idea and representation of the modern. Through close, contextualised analysis of a series of New York films, this study addresses the discrepancy between the putative insubstantiality of actuality films and the evident complexity of early cinema. A hitherto overlooked historical coincidence of actuality cinema, the modernisation of New York and its intermedial culture is shown to provide both a subject and setting for filmmakers.
Actuality cinema is a technology of the present; accordingly, temporality is pivotal for this study. Tom Gunning's 'cinema of attractions' thesis and a neurological conception of modernity posit a familiar shocks-and-jolts axis of the relations between cinema and modernity. In contrast, I argue for an alternative axis, founded in periods, rather than moments, of time and seek to demonstrate cinema's role as a technology of an expanded present time. Fifteen films of transport systems, skyscraper building sites and ways of seeing New York's streets, make up the primary source material. In these films, time provides a space for the representation and negotiation of the modern.
An expanded present fosters a thickened visuality. Within New York's intermedial culture, the adoption of stereoscopic visual practices was key to constructing a coherent filmic present, and a place for the spectator within a cinematic world. As a functioning space and time machine, a cinema of simultaneity, the complexity of actuality filmmaking practices increasingly moved actualities towards, and enabled their interrelation with, an emerging narrative cinema. Rather than a failed experiment, New York actuality cinema is here demonstrated to be an example of cinema working. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:22:10Z |
| format | Thesis (University of Nottingham only) |
| id | nottingham-10142 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:22:10Z |
| publishDate | 2005 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-101422025-02-28T11:07:16Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10142/ A Space and Time Machine: Actuality Cinema in New York City, 1890s to c. 1905 Walsh, John Urban actuality films are short, single shot views of street scenes, skyscrapers or construction sites, or views from moving vehicles. They are, typically, regarded as simple filmic snap-shots. Conversely, early cinema is conventionally thought to be a complex hybrid medium, a crucible for the idea and representation of the modern. Through close, contextualised analysis of a series of New York films, this study addresses the discrepancy between the putative insubstantiality of actuality films and the evident complexity of early cinema. A hitherto overlooked historical coincidence of actuality cinema, the modernisation of New York and its intermedial culture is shown to provide both a subject and setting for filmmakers. Actuality cinema is a technology of the present; accordingly, temporality is pivotal for this study. Tom Gunning's 'cinema of attractions' thesis and a neurological conception of modernity posit a familiar shocks-and-jolts axis of the relations between cinema and modernity. In contrast, I argue for an alternative axis, founded in periods, rather than moments, of time and seek to demonstrate cinema's role as a technology of an expanded present time. Fifteen films of transport systems, skyscraper building sites and ways of seeing New York's streets, make up the primary source material. In these films, time provides a space for the representation and negotiation of the modern. An expanded present fosters a thickened visuality. Within New York's intermedial culture, the adoption of stereoscopic visual practices was key to constructing a coherent filmic present, and a place for the spectator within a cinematic world. As a functioning space and time machine, a cinema of simultaneity, the complexity of actuality filmmaking practices increasingly moved actualities towards, and enabled their interrelation with, an emerging narrative cinema. Rather than a failed experiment, New York actuality cinema is here demonstrated to be an example of cinema working. 2005 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10142/1/john-walsh-phd-thesis-2005.pdf Walsh, John (2005) A Space and Time Machine: Actuality Cinema in New York City, 1890s to c. 1905. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. early cinema early film actuality cinema actuailty film New York City skyscraper Flatiron Building vision visuality visual culture ways of seeing representation cultural history photography intermedial intermediality temporality temporal simultaneity |
| spellingShingle | early cinema early film actuality cinema actuailty film New York City skyscraper Flatiron Building vision visuality visual culture ways of seeing representation cultural history photography intermedial intermediality temporality temporal simultaneity Walsh, John A Space and Time Machine: Actuality Cinema in New York City, 1890s to c. 1905 |
| title | A Space and Time Machine: Actuality Cinema in New York City, 1890s to c. 1905 |
| title_full | A Space and Time Machine: Actuality Cinema in New York City, 1890s to c. 1905 |
| title_fullStr | A Space and Time Machine: Actuality Cinema in New York City, 1890s to c. 1905 |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Space and Time Machine: Actuality Cinema in New York City, 1890s to c. 1905 |
| title_short | A Space and Time Machine: Actuality Cinema in New York City, 1890s to c. 1905 |
| title_sort | space and time machine: actuality cinema in new york city, 1890s to c. 1905 |
| topic | early cinema early film actuality cinema actuailty film New York City skyscraper Flatiron Building vision visuality visual culture ways of seeing representation cultural history photography intermedial intermediality temporality temporal simultaneity |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10142/ |