Body Shots

by Jonathan Auerbach

"This original and compelling book places the body at the center of cinema's first decade and challenges the idea that for early audiences, the new medium's fascination rested on visual spectacle for its own sake. Instead, as Jonathan Auerbach argues, it was the human form in motion that most profoundly shaped early cinema. Auerbach analyzes films that reveal anxieties and preoccupations about persons on public display--both exceptional figures, such as the 1896 presidential candidate William McKinley, and ordinary people caught by the movie camera in their daily routines. He examines the kinetics of vocalization--how sound in these brief (silent) films was visually registered by way of mouth and lips--and movement, that is, how bodies traversed space to create the first multishot fictional narratives. He closes with a meditation on early cinema and death (when the body stops moving) and considers the implications his analysis poses for new media and technology studies."--Back cover.