Monkeyshines, No. 1 is one of the first experimental films, even if it’s only experimental by chance. The filmmakers weren’t trying to create something abstract or weird, but the technology was so new that they couldn’t get realistic images. In fact, we could argue that it’s not even a film, just a camera test.
The film was shot by William K. L. Dickson and William Heise, both of them employees of Edison. They were testing the kinetograph, one of the first motion picture cameras. There’re other two similar tests from the same time—Monkeyshines, No. 2 and Monkeyshines, No. 3—but they aren’t so mysterious because they look slightly sharper. Monkeyshines, No. 1 is almost abstract.
We don’t know if Monkeyshines, No. 1 was shot in 1889 or 1890, but some historians believe that it was the first film shot in the USA. There’re at least two different theories about the year and who the actor is. The film scholar Paul Spehr claimed it was shot in June 1889 with John Ott, while the film historian Gordon Hendricks believed it was shot in November 1890 with G. Sacco Albanese.
Hendricks' theory is based on a statement by Dickson, who explained that he had shot some experiments using Albanese as an actor: “...a bright sunny-natured Greek, Sacco Albanese by name, was one of my very earliest victims, figuring mostly in the 1/4-inch, and later in the 1/2-inch, pictures. Draped in white, he was made to go through some weird antics.” [Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema]
By the way, Albanese was not Greek, but Maltese. In any case, from what is known about him, he only worked for Edison for one year, between 1890 and 1891, so if Hendricks' theory is true, the film was shot at some point between 1890 and April 1891, when Albanese left Edison's laboratory.
Spehr's theory was that by 1890 Edison was no longer experimenting with cylinders because they had been replaced by rolls of film, that’s why he thinks that Monkeyshines, No. 1 is from 1889. However, most historians think that Edison didn’t abandon the cylinder idea until the late 1890s, so Hendricks' theory seems more plausible.
Anyway, for me the year is not so important, I’m fascinated by its visual aesthetics. It reminds me of contemporary experimental filmmakers, such as Bill Morrison. It’s a spectral, hauntological, film. As Derrida wrote in Spectres of Marx: “…two directions of absence, at the articulation of what is no longer and what is not yet.” Monkeyshines, No. 1 is not yet a film. Monkeyshines, No. 1 is no longer a film.
If you’re interested in how the kinetograph worked, you can watch this short video that uses a replica to explain some of the details.
Pre-cinema: A [very brief] prehistory of film
Monkeyshines, No. 1 is part of pre-cinema, also called pre-cinematography or prehistory of cinema. The term pre-cinema refers to all the technologies and inventions that are considered predecessors of cinema.
The oldest film that we know of is Roundhay Garden Scene (1888), so we could consider that pre-cinema history ended around 1888. But when did it begin?
One of the earliest examples of pre-cinema is the cave paintings of Altamira. One of the paintings is a boar that has 8 legs, as is the painter was trying to represent movement.
We don’t know for a fact whether the painter was interested in movement, but many archaeologists think cave paintings were made taking into account the relief of the stone, the flickering light of the torches, and the acoustic properties of the environment to create a sense of depth and movement. Maybe cave paintings were some kind of audiovisual spectacle, not just drawings. Other pre-cinematic performances, such as shadow theatre, have existed since at least 1500 BC.
Magic lanterns, optical toys, and panoramas
The most popular pre-cinema spectacle in Europe was the magic lantern, first described by Christiaan Huygens in the 17th century.
A magic lantern is an optical device that projects painted glass plates. It’s similar to a slide projector, but the magic lantern projected still and moving images. Although the animations were rudimentary, limited to two or three drawings, it was a huge success for several decades.
It’s important to highlight that magic lanterns were not only about narrative, such as contemporary mainstream films, some of the slides were abstract. I’ve even seen magic lanterns that used water and other liquids to create abstract fluid animations.
In the mid-19th century, the obsession with science gave rise to many optical toys: phenakistoscopes, zootropes, praxinoscopes... The popularity of these toys, combined with the invention of photography, laid the foundations for the cinematograph.
Another popular audiovisual spectacle of this era was panoramas. These 360° murals that sought complete immersion began as paintings, but they ended up including sound effects, light, wind, and artificial smoke. They were truly three-dimensional. Some were housed in purpose-built buildings, others were itinerant and toured all over Europe.
Sequential photography and painting
From the very beginnings of photography, pioneers such as Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne Jules Marey attempted to photograph movement. Many of these experiments in sequential photography, or chronophotography, were like very short films. Audiovisual social media platforms, such as Tik Tok, owe a lot to these pioneers. Distribution has changed, but new media is just old media digitalised.
In any case, the use of sequential narratives in art goes back much further than optical toys. The most usual examples are the Trajan Column (113 AD) and the Bayeux Tapestry (11th century). We could also speak of some classical paintings as pre-cinema. One of my favourites is The Dream of Pope Sergius (c. 1430), in which we see the same character in different phases of a journey. In addition, this painting includes a house sectioned off at the side to show its interior, as if it were a film set.
If you want to know more about pre-cinema, The History of The Discovery of Cinematography includes a lot of information from 900BC to around 1895.
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