MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Films have a long history, as we know. Thomas Edison released their Kinetoscope in 1891 to the public, allowing individuals to watch moving images, but people had been experimenting with moving images for over half a century before. In 1895 the Lumiere Brothers, arguably the pioneers of Cinema, showcased La Sortie des usines Lumière à Lyon (Workers leaving the Lumiere Factory) to the public, and within the year they had released 10 films. All were short, as short as 46 seconds, demonstrating their new technology - the Cinematograph. In 1896, the term Cinema was coined as the Lumiere Brothers opened their own cinemas, designed to show their work and the work of their cameramen.
Since then, we have seen various eras of film, with the Silent Era (ending c.1927) bringing us undeniable classics such as Nosferatu (1922), Metropolis (1927) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Cinema was in its earliest days, with static shots the norm and the feature essentially being a stage show captures on nitrate film. Make up and exaggerated expressions continued even into the early years of "Talkies" and the sets were as they would have been on stage, films were very different.
From the 1930's, sound took off and the "Golden Age of Hollywood" arrived. Throughout this period (1930's to the late 1950's), we see original ideas take off, a myriad of new techniques rise and cameras (cinematic, home and photographic) evolve at an incredible rate. Original ideas, musicals and adaptations of classic stories took centre stage and the industry became incredibly lucrative. Wonderful musicals include Top Hat (1935), original ideas gave us Citizen Kane (1941) and classic stories like The Maltese Falcon (1941). We also see animation in different forms appear, such as the rise of the Walt Disney Corporation, and stop-motion techniques starting to be used more. King Kong (1933) and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1953) are just two of the numerous stop-motion films that made history.
From the 1960's, we see a big rise in Science Fiction, and fast improvement of make up, sets, cameras and technology. Social change also helped drive cinema, and Horror films start to become more graphic. Throughout the 1970's, big movie studios continue to experiment, while small independent and low budget films continued to be successful. The 1980's start to properly combine animation and live-action, while we start to see computer generated imagery (CGI) used. The 1990's gave us the first fully computer generated film, Toy Story (1995) before we edge into the 2000's, the 3D phase and now the heavy return towards practical effects and the age of franchises.
The reason I have stopped going into details from the 1960's is that from then, film-making became very different. Before this, the crew had to be creative. There wasn't a set way of doing things, so stunts were done however the crew felt was best. These days, if its too hard to do physically, computers do it. They didn't have that back then. There are so many scenes famously done with clever visual tricks in the older films, which are far more believable than modern day films, such as this scene in Modern Times (1936).
I agree that modern films are technically superior, but there are so many now that for every blockbuster there are a dozen straight-to-DVD or streaming service that are equally crap. If you want to experience proper film-making, explore the earlier films. I implore you.
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