chapter21.txt

CHAPTER XXI







MOTION PICTURES







THE preceding chapters have treated of Edison in



various aspects as an inventor, some of which



are familiar to the public, others of which are believed



to be in the nature of a novel revelation, simply because



no one had taken the trouble before to put the



facts together. To those who have perhaps grown



weary of seeing Edison's name in articles of a sensational



character, it may sound strange to say that,



after all, justice has not been done to his versatile



and many-sided nature; and that the mere prosaic



facts of his actual achievement outrun the wildest



flights of irrelevant journalistic imagination. Edison



hates nothing more than to be dubbed a genius or



played up as a "wizard"; but this fate has dogged



him until he has come at last to resign himself to it



with a resentful indignation only to be appreciated



when watching him read the latest full-page Sunday



"spread" that develops a casual conversation into



oracular verbosity, and gives to his shrewd surmise



the cast of inspired prophecy.







In other words, Edison's real work has seldom been



seriously discussed. Rather has it been taken as a



point of departure into a realm of fancy and romance,



where as a relief from drudgery he is sometimes quite



willing to play the pipe if some one will dance to it.



Indeed, the stories woven around his casual suggestions



are tame and vapid alongside his own essays



in fiction, probably never to be published, but which



show what a real inventor can do when he cuts loose



to create a new heaven and a new earth, unrestrained



by any formal respect for existing conditions of servitude



to three dimensions and the standard elements.







The present chapter, essentially technical in its



subject-matter, is perhaps as significant as any in this



biography, because it presents Edison as the Master



Impresario of his age, and maybe of many following



ages also. His phonographs and his motion pictures



have more audiences in a week than all the theatres



in America in a year. The "Nickelodeon" is the central



fact in modern amusement, and Edison founded



it. All that millions know of music and drama he



furnishes; and the whole study of the theatrical managers



thus reaching the masses is not to ascertain the



limitations of the new art, but to discover its boundless



possibilities. None of the exuberant versions of



things Edison has not done could endure for a moment



with the simple narrative of what he has really done



as the world's new Purveyor of Pleasure. And yet



it all depends on the toilful conquest of a subtle and



intricate art. The story of the invention of the



phonograph has been told. That of the evolution



of motion pictures follows. It is all one piece of



sober, careful analysis, and stubborn, successful



attack on the problem.







The possibility of making a record of animate movement,



and subsequently reproducing it, was predicted



long before the actual accomplishment. This, as we



have seen, was also the case with the phonograph,



the telephone, and the electric light. As to the



phonograph, the prediction went only so far as the



RESULT; the apparent intricacy of the problem being



so great that the MEANS for accomplishing the desired



end were seemingly beyond the grasp of the imagination



or the mastery of invention.







With the electric light and the telephone the prediction



included not only the result to be accomplished,



but, in a rough and general way, the mechanism



itself; that is to say, long before a single sound



was intelligibly transmitted it was recognized that



such a thing might be done by causing a diaphragm,



vibrated by original sounds, to communicate its



movements to a distant diaphragm by a suitably



controlled electric current. In the case of the electric



light, the heating of a conductor to incandescence in



a highly rarefied atmosphere was suggested as a



scheme of illumination long before its actual



accomplishment, and in fact before the production of a



suitable generator for delivering electric current in a



satisfactory and economical manner.







It is a curious fact that while the modern art of



motion pictures depends essentially on the development



of instantaneous photography, the suggestion



of the possibility of securing a reproduction of animate



motion, as well as, in a general way, of the



mechanism for accomplishing the result, was made



many years before the instantaneous photograph became



possible. While the first motion picture was



not actually produced until the summer of 1889, its



real birth was almost a century earlier, when Plateau,



in France, constructed an optical toy, to which the



impressive name of "Phenakistoscope" was applied,



for producing an illusion of motion. This toy in turn



was the forerunner of the Zoetrope, or so-called



"Wheel of Life," which was introduced into this



country about the year 1845. These devices were



essentially toys, depending for their successful



operation (as is the case with motion pictures) upon a



physiological phenomenon known as persistence of



vision. If, for instance, a bright light is moved



rapidly in front of the eye in a dark room, it appears



not as an illuminated spark, but as a line of fire; a



so-called shooting star, or a flash of lightning produces



the same effect. This result is purely physiological,



and is due to the fact that the retina of the eye may



be considered as practically a sensitized plate of



relatively slow speed, and an image impressed upon it



remains, before being effaced, for a period of from



one-tenth to one-seventh of a second, varying according



to the idiosyncrasies of the individual and the intensity



of the light. When, therefore, it is said that



we should only believe things we actually see, we



ought to remember that in almost every instance we



never see things as they are.







Bearing in mind the fact that when an image is



impressed on the human retina it persists for an



appreciable period, varying as stated, with the



individual, and depending also upon the intensity of the



illumination, it will be seen that, if a number of pictures



or photographs are successively presented to the



eye, they will appear as a single, continuous photo-



graph, provided the periods between them are short



enough to prevent one of the photographs from being



effaced before its successor is presented. If, for



instance, a series of identical portraits were rapidly



presented to the eye, a single picture would apparently



be viewed, or if we presented to the eye the series



of photographs of a moving object, each one representing



a minute successive phase of the movement,



the movements themselves would apparently again



take place.







With the Zoetrope and similar toys rough drawings



were used for depicting a few broadly outlined



successive phases of movement, because in their day



instantaneous photography was unknown, and in addition



there were certain crudities of construction that



seriously interfered with the illumination of the pictures,



rendering it necessary to make them practically



as silhouettes on a very conspicuous background.



Hence it will be obvious that these toys produced



merely an ILLUSION of THEORETICAL motion.







But with the knowledge of even an illusion of



motion, and with the philosophy of persistence of



vision fully understood, it would seem that, upon the



development of instantaneous photography, the



reproduction of ACTUAL motion by means of pictures



would have followed, almost as a necessary consequence.



Yet such was not the case, and success was



ultimately accomplished by Edison only after



persistent experimenting along lines that could not



have been predicted, including the construction of



apparatus for the purpose, which, if it had not been



made, would undoubtedly be considered impossible.



In fact, if it were not for Edison's peculiar mentality,



that refuses to recognize anything as impossible until



indubitably demonstrated to be so, the production



of motion pictures would certainly have been delayed



for years, if not for all time.







One of the earliest suggestions of the possibility of



utilizing photography for exhibiting the illusion of



actual movement was made by Ducos, who, as early



as 1864, obtained a patent in France, in which he said:



"My invention consists in substituting rapidly and



without confusion to the eye not only of an individual,



but when so desired of a whole assemblage, the enlarged



images of a great number of pictures when taken



instantaneously and successively at very short



intervals.... The observer will believe that he sees



only one image, which changes gradually by reason of



the successive changes of form and position of the



objects which occur from one picture to the other.



Even supposing that there be a slight interval of



time during which the same object was not shown,



the persistence of the luminous impression upon the



eye will fill this gap. There will be as it were a living



representation of nature and . . . the same scene will



be reproduced upon the screen with the same degree



of animation.... By means of my apparatus I am



enabled especially to repro...