What is the origin of stories? To find this out, we have to think of the beginning of stories, bringing us back to a time much before the modern technology of today. Stories occurred way before they were written down, let alone using them in motion pictures such as film; a medium that is only just over 100 years old.
The full history of all these stories is a broad subject, too big of a subject in fact to accurately and entirely touch on without deep diving into literature. Since it is a wide-ranging subject, I shall primarily focus on the first documentation of storytelling, how they used stories in the first films and how it affected the film industry and our society over the years.
The beginning
Stories were told, heard and repeated for centuries. The origin of stories comes from oral tradition also known as folklore. It is known that until ±4000BC all literature was oral. Between te years 4000BC and 3000BC it is believed that writing developed both in Egypt and the Mesopotamian civilisation at Sumer. This is when stories were documented for the first time. The British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard and his team were the first to discover this. They commenced an expedition in August 1849 to investigate the ruins of Babylon and the mounds of southern Mesopotamia. Finding 2500 broken clay tablets covered with unreadable markings. In the end, they discovered that these tablets contained the first writing system, which they referred to as Cuneiform. Thus, for as far as we know, writing originated in Mesopotamia. Which is why it is not a big surprise that one of the first story documentations was found there as well.
One of these very first documentations of stories was the epic story of Gilgamesh. The tales of Gilgamesh were found in Mesopotamia during an excavation around the same year that Layard started his expedition in 1849. The clay tablets were found by Hormuzd Rassam, who first served as an assistant to Layard. Rassam was known for making a number of important discoveries, the most notable discovery being the 12 clay tablets that contained the Epic of Gilgamesh, the first literature.
The Epic of Gilgamesh: A series of Mesopotamian tales that recount the adventures of Gilgamesh. Who was believed to be the King of Uruk around the year 2600 BCE
In this video by TED-Ed the general and concise story of Gilgamesh is explained with the use of animation, directed by Amir Houshang Moein.
'Horse in Motion' (1878) by Muybridge
'Lion hunt of Ashurbanipal' (645-635 BC) animated
Relief of the Lion hunt of Ashurbanipal, British Museum
'Roudnhay Garden Scene' (1888) by Louis Le Prince
by CrashCourse on YouTube
'Workers leaving the Lumière Factory' (1895) by Auguste and Louis Lumière
'Gulliver's Travels' (1902) by George Méliès
Motion
In the same era of the ancient tablets, we stumbled upon a first iteration of stories through images. However, there seems to be movement in them.
Could they have been considered the very first version of a motion picture?
It was certain that Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria from 668 to 627 BC, was enthusiastic about the stories of Gilgamesh, as he had multiple copies of them in his library. Not everyone could read during the time of his reign, which was a problem for the king as he wanted to gain popularity amongst his people. So, he decided to make the stories accessible by carving them into stone. However, replacing the Epic Hero Gilgamesh with Ashurbanipal himself. Creating a false narrative while also creating one of the first ever narrative reliefs.
One of these most famous carved reliefs from that time was ‘Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal’
The slabs of large stone were also excavated by Hormuzd Rassam in 1852-54 along with William Loftus in 1854-55 and most of them were sent to the British Museum. (Honour & Fleming, 2009)
There is motion in these images. This can be seen clearly when you put the carvings together in rapid succession like I did below. You get a similar effect as the first motion picture ‘Horse in Motion’ (1878) created by Eadweard Muybridge.
Now that we have a glimpse into the history of stories, we can continue with the motion picture and how the stories grew with the use of film.As time went on, and film developed, becoming one of the biggest mediums with which stories are told around the world. We will first be scoping into the origin, inventions and films from the 19th century, the starting point of cinema.
Firstly it started with the Phenakistoscope, invented by Joseph Plateau and Simon Stampfer in 1832. They invented an animation device that created a fluent illusion of motion. After their invention, the first motion picture was created by Muybridge using his own invention, the Zoopraxiscope. He was most known for his advancements in photography using motion. Later, in the year 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, which rapidly became the most popular home-entertainment device of the 19th century. Edison wanted to create a visual accompaniment to the phonograph and so he commissioned a man named Dickson. He was a laboratory assistant and invented the motion-picture camera in 1888. He did so by building upon the works of Muybridge and Marey. In 1894 the viewing device, the Kinetoscope, was copied all throughout Europe. This happened because Edison decided not to internationally patent on either his camera or the Kinetoscope. In Europe his inventions were modified and improved, far beyond the American originals. Before the Kinetoscope became a hit in Europe, we know that one of the first instances of documentation using film would be ‘Roundhay Garden Scene’ (1888) by French inventor Louis Le Prince. It is the world’s earliest surviving motion picture that used film and a camera. Even though the duration is merely 2.11 seconds, it’s technically a movie.
While Louis Le Prince was the first to create what would be considered a movie, he did not succeed in showcasing his invention during a demonstration.
The Kinetoscope also attracted the attention of the Lumière brothers. Because of their interest in it, they invented the first commercially viable projector. Contrary to Louis Le Prince, the Lumière brothers were able to demonstrate their invention on December 28, 1895.
In this video the entire timeline of the technological advances is briefly explained with the Lumière brothers as the main subject.
The Lumière brothers succeeded and rose to fame. The name of their invention was the Cinématographe and with it they started making films. One of their first films was ‘La Sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière’ also known as ‘Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory’ (1895), this film was considered the actual first motion picture.
Adaptation
The era of the movies began. The inventions developed farther and so did the films. Now they started using narratives and making movie adaptations of novels. I want to briefly mention a few examples of these adaptations.
Starting with the most popular adapted novel ‘Oliver Twist’ (1897) by Charles Dickens. The first movie adaptation of this novel was ‘The Death of Nancy Sykes’ (1897) performed by Charles J. Ross and Mabel Fenton. There was also the adaptation to Jonathan Swift’s novel ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ (1726). The first film version of this story was directed by Georges Méliès in 1902. He played the role of the main character from the novel. This story also happens to have its own Disney adaptation called ‘Gulliver Mickey’ (1934), however, I will not be touching much on animated movies, but briefly mention Disney again lateron.
There is a whole list of novel-to-movie adaptations that we can mention, but these were some of the earliest examples in film. A combination of mediums began and the technology to create films started to adopt creativity.
“Film is limited to a shorter narration than the novel; however, it naturally had pictorial possibilities the novel doesn’t have. What can’t be transferred by incident might be translated into image. And here we come to the most essential difference between the two forms of narration” (Monaco, 2009, p. 54)
Fairy tales often have multiple renditions of the same story that tend to have shorter narration, or even much different narration. You have the romanticized versions, the child friendly versions and then the ‘original’ tales. One example that comes to mind is: the Brothers Grimm. Their versions of the most well-known fairy tales are often quite dark, the opposite of Disney's motion picture iterations. Let’s have a look at the classic ‘Cinderella’ also known as ‘The Little Glass Slipper’, in the rendition by the Brothers Grimm, Cinderella’s stepsisters cut off part of their feet to make the sandal fit. At the end of the story the sisters and the stepmother get their eyes pecked out by crows. It’s a very different ending than the Disney adaptation, where Cinderella meets her prince charming without much fuss and no harm becoming to her stepsisters. So, most of the story is the same, there is only a few details that differ. This has to do with era, so you must remember to put it in its respective context and thinking of the respective time period. Still, both of these stories are titled “Cinderella”, to refer to one or the other you would have to mention by whom it was made.
Stories changing over time isn’t new to us. As I mentioned earlier, we saw that King Ashurbanipal decided to change the story of Gilgamesh for his own purposes. At the beginning of this chapter a short video was shown on the Epic of Gilgamesh. It perfectly illustrated how stories sometimes merge. In the story of Gilgamesh, there is mention of a boat, on which two animals are loaded to prepare for a great flood. If you know any stories from the Bible, this one should sound familiar to you. I myself immediately made the connection with Noah’s Ark.
Film adaptations are no different, they change the story, even if it is an ever so slight change.
How did these changes in stories affect us and our society?
Nowadays, we humans tend to look everything up. I mean, why wouldn't we? We have this massive archive of knowledge on the internet on which we could find whatever we wish for.
type type type, click the button and BOOM, plenty of stories to pick from, whether you are on side X or side Y.
However, there is a downside to this. Humans might not realise, but it has become more difficult for us to accurately remember, because we don’t have to try to actively remember anymore. Taking this into account, has the change of stories and technological development affected our memory?
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