Abstract

ABSTRACT:

This article presents new research describing the direct influence of the entertainment disks made by Ottomar Anschütz for public use in his Schnellseher moving-picture device on the kinetoscope films made at Thomas Edison’s West Orange laboratory. These include Edison’s creation of a direct copy of an 1890 Anschütz production in The Barber Shop (1893) and an imitation of another Anschütz production in Fred Ott’s Sneeze (1891). In making these connections between the first two moving-picture systems, the article also provides a brief glimpse of the exhibition of the Schnellseher in America from 1889 to 1893 and suggests new lines of inquiry about the international character of the invention of moving pictures, about the sources of early filmed subjects, and about the contributions of previously overlooked figures at the forefront of moving-picture commercialization.

pdf

Share