![]() In films such as A Trip to the Moon (1902), for instance, we see – in admittedly primitive form – a sort of childhood from the inside out, as opposed to childhood from the outside in in Baby’s Breakfast. (As Orson Welles later said, cinema was “the biggest electric train set any boy ever had”.) Méliès made use of all of the effects at his disposal to craft elaborate fantasy and trick films. Baby’s Breakfast is very much an adult view of childhood, but to find the first filmmaker who captures the wonder, the freedom, the playfulness of childhood, we need only look to Lumière’s contemporary Georges Méliès.Ĭoming from a background in magic, theatre and spectacle, Méliès’s relationship with the cinematograph was like that of a child staring open-mouthed at a bundle of new toys on Christmas morning. Lumière’s seemingly off-the-cuff execution belied the precision and calculation behind every shot. This early cinematic snapshot of childhood was made by a filmmaker who was nonetheless rigidly ‘adult’ in the approach to his material. Mark Cousins’s A Story of Children and Film is released on 4 April in UK cinemas and on BFI Player, and is reviewed in the April 2014 issue of Sight & Sound. ![]() ![]() Many of the films will also be available to watch online via the BFI Player and Filmhouse Player. A season of 17 films curated by Mark Cousins, Cinema of Childhood, runs April-July at venues throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK. ![]()
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