Discovering Cinema: "Learning to Talk" & "Movies Dream in Color"

Discovering Cinema is a 2-disc DVD set comprised of Learning to Talk and Movies Dream in Color, produced by Lobster Films/Histoire, 2003-2004. Film historians Eric Lange and Serge Bromberg compiled materials from their own Lobster Films collection and material from archives throughout Europe and the USA to create these two historic documentaries illustrating the birth of sound and color cinema, perhaps the greatest cultural achievement of the twentieth century.

Told from a European perspective, American viewers of these documentaries will be surprised by moving footage of Emile Reynaud's pre-cinema animation "Pantomimes Lumineuse"; the gadget-packed Allefex machine for live sync sound effects; Gaumont's 1905 Chronophone sound film system, using a compressed-air amplifier and their Chronochrome three-color systems; additional unique examples of the Kodacolor lenticular color system, Kinemacolor, an additive system using filters; and NotoFilm in which notes of the intended musical accompaniment streams across the bottom of the silent screen.

BONUS MATERIALS INCLUDE:

• La Cucaracha (1934) - One of the first live action films to utilize the three-strip Technicolor process, struck from the original nitrate negatives.
• Lucia Di Lammermoor (1908) & La Donna e Mobile (1908) - Two sound on disc films with songs performed by Enrico Caruso.
• 1927 Optical Sound Newsreel - Featuring an interview with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Collegians: Flying High (1929) - An example of a "part-talkie" as an episode of the silent serial.
• Hand-Painted Films by The Lumière Brothers - From the end of the nineteenth century.
• Paris Fashions (1926) - A vintage stenciled-colored Paris fashion review from the mid-1920s.
• Wonderland of California (1930) - Featuring unique color images of the Marx Brothers.

PLUS TRAILERS, TEST REELS, SHORT SUBJECTS AND MORE!