TIME and WIND PROJECTORS 65 JOSEPH PLATEAU 88 PLATEAU’S MOTION DEVICE 89 DANCING GIRL--PHENAKISTICOPE 89 FRANZ UCHATIUS 104 FIRST ACTION PROJECTORS 105 LANGENHEIM BROTHERS 112 ETIENNE JULES MAREY 113 MUYBRIDGE BATTERY CAMERA SYSTEM 120 MAREY’S OUTDOOR STUDIO 121 GUN CAMERA 121 EDISON AND EASTMAN 136 THE KINETOSCOPE PARLOR 137 REYNAUD’S _THEATRE OPTIQUE_ 148 ANSCHUTZ’S ELECTRICAL TACHYSCOPE 149 LOUIS LUMIERE 160 ROBERT W. PAUL 160 THE VITASCOPE 161 FOREWORD Ask almost anyone about the origins of the motion picture, and you’ll get a glib and automatic answer. It will include a fast, indefinite reference to Edison and Eastman and will move on, with more-or-less authentic nostalgia, to Mack Sennett, Fatty Arbuckle, D. W. Griffith and maybe a few others. With luck, one or two titles--The Great Train Robbery, for example--may creep in. The fact is, most of us simply do not know much about it. It is good, therefore, to take a long look at the people, the events, and the discoveries--accidental and otherwise--which combined, during the years of many centuries, to produce the motion picture as we know it today. This book gives us the long look, the authentic perspective. It may tend to slow down our glibness, to clothe our fancy with fact, and to deflate any notion that the movies belong exclusively to our own well-publicized 20th Century. It is sobering, but it is necessary. For, unless we brace ourselves with some knowledge of what has gone before, we cannot be adequately prepared for what lies ahead. The industry, as we have known it in the past, is undergoing great changes. It is difficult to predict exactly what form it will eventually take. One thing is certain, however--the “Magic Shadows” in one form or another will continue to entertain and instruct the millions in every land for generations to come. EDWARD P. CURTIS Rochester, N. Y. July 2, 1960 [Illustration: Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae, 1671