Cinema before the world : the global routes of the Lumière brothers /
Cinema before the World investigates the transnational origins of filmmaking by focusing on a case study in world cinema--the 1896-1897 voyage of one of the Lumière Brothers camera operators, Alexandre Promio, across North Africa and the Middle East. The book shows how the sites in these early films...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Fordham University Press,
2026.
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| Summary: | Cinema before the World investigates the transnational origins of filmmaking by focusing on a case study in world cinema--the 1896-1897 voyage of one of the Lumière Brothers camera operators, Alexandre Promio, across North Africa and the Middle East. The book shows how the sites in these early films are not simply backdrops, but integral to film form and its global history. The book evokes a formative moment when cinema stood before the world-both as a technological marvel and as a medium that shaped how space and time were perceived. Tracing a journey from Algeria to Egypt and Palestine, and moving across media from lithography to photography and panoramas, Allan shows how in the hands of later filmmakers, such as Egyptian director Youssef Chahine and the Syrian collective Abounaddara, the Lumière films continue to enrich and inform visions of what cinema-and the world-can be. Cinema before the World offers a critical historical intervention in the global story of the cinematograph and a visionary method for film scholarship grounded in transnational analysis across languages, regions, and media. |
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| Physical Description: | 239 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781531514037 1531514049 9781531514044 1531514030 |