The Great Art Of Light And Shadow

"If there is one book to use as a starting-point for an understanding of the history of image projection, and how pictures came to move, this is the book. Written in a clear and thoughtful style, maintained in an elegantly sympathetic translation by Richard Crangle." (Living Pictures: The Journal of the Popular and Projected Image before 1914, Vol. 1:3, 2001) "Richard Crangle's technical understanding is evident throughout . . . And the result is peerless . . . It has taken a great many years to create a widespread understanding that screen techniques did not start with 1895 and the Lumieres. In this contribution to that understanding Laurent Mannoni tackles, with resounding success, a myriad of related media techniques, spanning half a millennium. To quote David Robinson's Foreward, this is 'no cold, dry, academic study, but a pulsing, vital chronicle'." (The New Magic Lantern Journal, Vol. 9, No. 1, Winter 2001) "A fine book, in my opinion the best 'pre-cinema' book ever written." (Tom Gunning, University of Chicago)

Laurent Mannoni - collector, writer, and filmmaker is a specialist in early cinema. He is Directeur scientifique du Patrimoine et du Conservatoire des techniques at the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris. In 2006 he was awarded the Jean Mitry prize by the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. Richard Crangle is a freelance researcher and writer and formerly Assistant Director of the Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture, University of Exeter.

Part 1: The dreams of the eye: dark rooms and magic mirrors Light in the darkness The "Lantern of Fear" tours the world Part 2: Triumphant illusions: magie lumineuse in the country and the city "Life and Motion" The 18th-century lantern slide The phantasmagoria From panorama to daguerreotype Part 3: The pencil of nature": the pirouette of the dancer The "vital question" resolved? Great expectations The magic lantern - a sovereign and her subjects Part 4: Inscribing movement: the passage of Venus and the galloping horse Marey releases the dove The big wheel of little mirrors Edison and his "films through the keyhole" The labourers of the eleventh hour Appendices: Museums displaying interesting items relating to the history of "pre-cinema" media Report of the scientists Jamin and Richer on the phantasmagorie of Robertson and the Phantasmaparastasie of Cli