Film

History of film and video
Cinema became possible with the invention of photography in the middle of the 19th century. Edward Muybridge discovered way to take photos in 1877. George Eastman produced the first celluloid film on the roll in 1888. Then in 1893 Thomas Edison invented the kinetoscope. It produced film of a very low quality and only one person could watch at a time. Then brothers Limierr from Lyon invented cinematograph. This machine allowed a large audience to watch moving pictures. The first film show was in Paris in 1895.

In 1912 Hollywood studio was established in California. The silent era of film - there wasn´t recorded sound in film. It was era of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Rudolph Valentino. Movies with recorded sound ended the silent era in 1927. In 1923 Technicolour appeared and the next twenty years the studios included: Paramount, RKO, Warner Brothers and Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

After World War II. the movie industry began to change as a result of the TV revolution. TV and then videos became very popular. Now the most movie fans are under 20 and that is why there are so many film for teenagers. The idea of teen movies began in the Fifties, when James Dean had enormous success with film East of Eden.
Then 10 years later pop stars started to appear in films. The Beatles made several films in the Sixties - A hard day´s night, Help. James Bond also began his career in the Sixties. In the Seventies became popular two kinds of movies with young audience: horror films and martial art films and produced action stars - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee and Jean Claude Van Damme. Comedies and movies with pop stars are popular - The police academy and films with Madonna, David Bowie and Prince.

In the Eighties video appeared in Czech homes. But video is older, the first discs appeared in 1938. When video recorders appeared in homes, suddenly it was possible to watch films or TV programmes at any time. Video is also necessary for security in banks, museums and shops. Video is used for modern education at schools. Also you can buy video albums and Video Compact Discs. There are video screens at concerts, so whole audience can see what is happening on the stage.

Video is used for video games, which are very popular and many young people are arcade addicts.

Film in the USA
During the 1920´s film became mass art because of Hollywood, which changed film into a branch of entertainment industry. The interest in films grew with the introduction of sound films in 1926.
Film making was monopolised by several large studios, each of which began to specialize in certain genres:
Warner Brothers in biographies, gangster films and musicals; Metro Goldwin Mayer in glossy and pseudo-elegant films; Paramount Pictures in fictions and adventure films; Twentieth Century Fox in historical and adventure films; Universal Pictures in the horror films and musicals.
The 1939 civil War epic - Gone with the Wind - became one of the most profitable films of all time. Productions costs tripled between 1941 and 1960 and the post-war development of television meant the end of the old Hollywood.
In the 1960´s started the renaissance of the American cinema.
The best directors born before 1920 are William Wyler (The Best Years of our Lives), John Houston (The African Queen, Moulin Rouge), Stanley Kramer (Judgement at Nuremberg), Elia Kazan (East of Eden), John Ford (The Grapes of Warth), Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot), Charles Chaplin (Kid), Orson Welles (Citizen Kane), Joseph Mankiewicz (Cleopatra), George Cukor (My Fair Lady).
The best-known directors born between 1920 - 1940 are Alan Pakula (All the President´s Men), Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey), Sydney Pollack (Bobby Deerfield), Francis Ford Coppola (The God Father).

Many actors and actress from USA are familiar to audience all over the world. They are Humprey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn (The African Queen), Clark Gable (Gone with the Wind), Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck, Joseph Cotten, Henry Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Streisand and Jane Fonda.

The Oscars - The Motion Picture Academy Awards, started in 1927. Each year a series of Oscars is awarded to the four best actors, actress and directors.