Shadows, Screens, Bodies, and Light

Reading the Discursive Shadow in the Age of American Silent Cinema

in Screen Bodies
Author:
Amy E. Borden Portland State University, USA aeborden@pdx.edu

Search for other papers by Amy E. Borden in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
Restricted access

Abstract

Considering how American publications wrote about x-ray, still, and photochemical motion pictures as shadows reveals a discursive bridge among the three varieties from the performance practice of ombromanie (shadowgraphy). This process produced shadows of performing bodies where the bodies were accompanied by the impression created by the interaction of the bodies and the light source. That organization of bodies and technology, as complex as a body and a fluoroscope or as low-tech as hands, a candle, and a screen, can help historians contextualize popular narratives of early cinema that suggested audiences believed that motion pictures were real enough to jump offscreen. The resulting images drag the profilmic event and the peculiarities of the medium into a cultural understanding of cinema's potential to both represent and display life in motion.

Contributor Notes

Amy E. Borden is an Associate Professor of Film Studies in the School of Film at Portland State University. In her research and courses, she specializes in US silent film history, Gilded Age visual culture, classical film theory, and undergraduate pedagogical practices. She is currently writing a book-length study examining the origins of the film–mind analogy in classical film theory, which focuses on the theorization of motion pictures in Gilded Age American magazines. She has presented her work on silent film cycles and American nativist cinema nationally and internationally. Her work has appeared in anthologies and journals including Jump Cut; Beyond the Screen: Institutions, Networks, and Publics of Early Cinema; Cycles, Sequels, Remakes and Reboots: Multiplicities in Film and Television; A Companion to the Gangster Film; and The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Gender. Email: aeborden@pdx.edu

  • Collapse
  • Expand

Screen Bodies

The Journal of Embodiment, Media Arts, and Technology

  • Arago, Dominque François. (1839) 1980. “Report.” In Classic Essays on Photography, ed. Alan Trachtenberg. New Haven, CT: Leet's Island Books.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Barnard, Charles. 1896. “The New Photography.” The Chautauquan. April 1896, 7579.

  • Bottomore, Stephen. 1999. “The Panicking Audience? Early Cinema and the ‘Train Effect.’Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 19 (2): 177216. doi:10.1080/014396899100271.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bowling, Harry F. 1912. “Deus Ex Machina.” Los Angeles Times. 25 May, 114.

  • Brougham, Harvey. 1920. “The Play's Not All.” Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, November, 82.

  • Cartwright, Lisa. 1995. Screening the Body: Tracing Medicine's Visual Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

  • Current Literature. 1908. “The Startling Development of the Bi-Dimensional Theater.” Current Literature. May, 546549.

  • Current Literature. 1910. “The Fine Art of Pantomime.” Current Literature 49. August, 198.

  • Fleischman-Asceim, E. 1902. “Practical Radiography.” Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly 54 (6). October, 550551.

  • Glaser, Otto and Wilhelm Röntgen. 1945. Dr. W. C. Röntgen. Springfield, IL: C. C. Thomas.

  • Gorky, Maxim. (1896) 2002. “The Lumière Cinematograph.” In The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents 1896–1939, ed. Richard Taylor and Ian Christie, 2526. New York: Routledge.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Grieveson, Lee and Peter Krämer. 2004. The Silent Film Reader. New York: Routledge.

  • Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. 1988. “X Rays and the Quest for Invisible Reality in the Art of Kupka, Duchamp, and the Cubists.” Art Journal 47 (4): 323340. doi:10.2307/776982.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. 1989. “Francis Picabia, Radiometers, and X Rays in 1913.” The Art Bulletin 17 (1): 114123. doi:10.2307/3051217.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Hopkins, Albert. 1901. Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions. New York: Munn.

  • Hughes, Richard. 1921. “The Vanishing Man.” Life, 29 September, 67.

  • Lathrop, George Parsons. 1896. “Stage Scenery and the Vitascope.” North American Review. September, 377381. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25118712.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Lippit, Akira Mizuta. 2005. Atomic Light (Shadow Optics). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

  • Los Angeles Times. 1896. “At the Playhouses.” Los Angeles Times. 6 July, 6.

  • Los Angeles Times. 1919. “The Shadow Realm.” Los Angeles Times. 18 May. Section III, 3.

  • Martin, Thomas Commerford. 1896. “Photographing the Unseen: A Symposium on the Roentgen Rays.” The Century Illustrated Magazine. May, 120129.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Moffett, Cleveland. 1896. “The Röntgen Rays in America.” McClure's Magazine 6 (5), April, 415420.

  • Outlook. 1924. “The Ten Commandments.” Outlook. 30 January, 169.

  • Reniers, Perceval. 1927. “The Shadow Stage.” The Independent 118 (406). 12 March, 293.

  • Röntgen, Wilhelm. 1896. “On A New Kind of Rays.” Science 3 (59). 14 February, 227231.

  • Röntgen, Wilhelm. 1898. “Ueber eine neue Art von Strahlen.” Annalen der Physik 300 (1), 1217.

  • Röntgen, Wilhelm. 1995. “December 28, 1895 On a New Kind of Rays.” Veterinary Radiology & Ultrasound 36 (5). September, 371374.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Sarg, Tony. (1922) 2005. The Original Movie. Treasures From American Film Archives. San Francisco: National Film Preservation Foundation. DVD.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Solomon, Matthew. 2010. Disappearing Tricks: Silent Film, Houdini, and the New Magic of the Twentieth Century. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • The Arena. 1902. “The Rise of Photography and Its Service to Mankind.” The Arena 27 (1), 29. https://archive.org/details/ArenaMagazine-Volume27/page/n31/mode/2up.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • The Independent. 1901. “Review of Kim.” 1901. The Independent. 10 October, 2415. The Living Age. 1920. “Turns and Films.” The Living Age. 4 September, 590.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Thompson, Edward. 1896. “Application of X-rays for Exhibiting Invisible Objects in Motion.” Medical News. 7 March, 268.

  • Tilakasiri, Jayadeva. 2006. Asian Shadow and Puppet Theatre. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Department of Cultural Affairs.

  • Wood, R. W. 1896. “Photographing the Unseen: A Symposium on the Roentgen Rays.” The Century Illustrated Magazine. May, 120131.

Metrics

All Time Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 4740 2577 185
Full Text Views 133 5 1
PDF Downloads 105 7 0