Lumière brothers in the context of "Cinema of Italy"

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⭐ Core Definition: Lumière brothers

The Lumière brothers (UK: /ˈlmiɛər/, US: /ˌlmiˈɛər/; French: [lymjɛːʁ]), Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) and Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1948), were French manufacturers of photography equipment, best known for their Cinématographe motion picture system and the short films they produced between 1895 and 1905, which places them among the earliest filmmakers.

Their screening of a single film on 22 March 1895, for around 200 members of the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale (Society for the Development of the National Industry) in Paris was probably the first presentation of projected film. Their first commercial public screening on 28 December 1895, for around 40 paying visitors and invited relations has traditionally been regarded as the birth of cinema.

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👉 Lumière brothers in the context of Cinema of Italy

The cinema of Italy (Italian: cinema italiano, pronounced [ˈtʃiːnema itaˈljaːno]) comprises the films made within Italy or by Italian directors. Since its beginning, Italian cinema has influenced film movements worldwide. Italy is one of the birthplaces of art cinema and the stylistic aspect of film has been one of the most important factors in the history of Italian film. As of 2018, Italian films have won 14 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (the most of any country) as well as 12 Palmes d'Or (the second-most of any country), one Academy Award for Best Picture and many Golden Lions and Golden Bears.

The history of Italian cinema began a few months after the Lumière brothers began motion picture exhibitions. The first Italian director is considered to be Vittorio Calcina, a collaborator of the Lumière Brothers later active from 1896 to 1905. The first films date back to 1896 and were made in the main cities of the Italian peninsula. These brief experiments immediately met the curiosity of the popular class, encouraging operators to produce new films until they laid the foundations for the birth of a true film industry. In the early 1900s, artistic and epic films such as Otello (1906), The Last Days of Pompeii (1908), L'Inferno (1911), Quo Vadis (1913), and Cabiria (1914), were made as adaptations of books or stage plays. Italian filmmakers were using complex set designs, lavish costumes, and record budgets, to produce pioneering films. In the early years of the 20th century, silent cinema developed, bringing numerous Italian stars to the forefront until the end of World War I.

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Lumière brothers in the context of Autochrome Lumière

The Autochrome Lumière was an early colour photography process patented in 1903 by the Lumière brothers in France and first marketed in 1907. Autochrome was an additive color "mosaic screen plate" process. It was one of the principal colour photography processes in use before the advent of subtractive color film in the mid-1930s. A competing process was the three-colour principle of the Russian Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky.

Prior to the Lumière brothers, Louis Ducos du Hauron utilized the separation technique to create colour images on paper with screen plates, producing natural colours through superimposition, which would become the foundation of all commercial colour photography. Descendants of photographer Antoine Lumière, inventors Louis and Auguste Lumière utilized Du Hauron's (1869) technique, which had already been improved upon by other inventors such as John Joly (1894) and James William McDonough (1896), making it possible to print photographic images in colour. One of the most broadly used forms of colour photography in the early twentieth century, autochrome was recognized for its aesthetic appeal.

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Lumière brothers in the context of Cinema of France

The cinema of France comprises the film industry and its film productions, whether made within the nation of France or by French film production companies abroad. It is the oldest and largest precursor of national cinemas in Europe, with primary influence also on the creation of national cinemas in Asia.

The Lumière brothers launched cinematography in 1895 with their L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat. By the early 1900s, French cinema led globally, with pioneers like Méliès creating cinematic techniques and the first sci-fi film, A Trip to the Moon (1902). Studios like Pathé and Gaumont dominated, with Alice Guy-Blaché directing hundreds of films. Post-WWI, French cinema declined as U.S. films flooded Europe, leading to import quotas. Between the wars, directors like Jean Renoir, Jean Vigo and Marcel Carné shaped French Poetic Realism. Renoir’s La Règle du Jeu (1939) and Carné’s Les Enfants du Paradis (1945) remain iconic, showcasing innovation despite war challenges.

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