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The Film Portal

Portal film-illustration 01
Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects.

Film is an important art form; films entertain, educate, enlighten, and inspire audiences. The visual elements of cinema need no translation, giving the motion picture a universal power of communication. Films are also artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and in turn, affect them.

Traditional films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to an effect known as persistence of vision — whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers perceive motion due to psychological effects called beta movement and the phi phenomenon.

The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, photo-play, flick, and most commonly, movie. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema, and the movies.

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A scene of Felix "laffing" from "Felix in Hollywood" (1923).
Felix the Cat is a cartoon character created in the silent-film era. His black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combined to make Felix one of the most recognizable cartoon characters in the world. Felix was the first character from animation to attain a level of popularity sufficient to draw movie audiences based solely on his star power. Felix's origins remain disputed. Australian cartoonist and film entrepreneur Pat Sullivan and American animator Otto Messmer said that they created Felix. Some historians argue that Messmer ghosted for Sullivan. What is certain is that Felix emerged from Sullivan's studio, and cartoons featuring the character enjoyed unprecedented success and popularity in the 1920s. From 1922, Felix enjoyed sudden, enormous popularity in international popular culture. Felix's success was fading by the late 1920s with the arrival of sound cartoons. In 1929, Sullivan decided to finally make the transition and began distributing Felix sound cartoons through Copley Pictures. The sound Felix shorts proved to be a failure and the operation ended in 1930 with Sullivan himself passing away in 1933. Felix saw a brief three cartoon resurrection in 1936 by the Van Beuren Studios. Television would prove the cat's savior. Felix cartoons began airing on American TV in 1953. Joe Oriolo introduced a redesigned Felix in a new animated series for TV. The cat has since starred in other television programs and in a feature film.
  

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Lillian Gish
Credit: Bain News Service

Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893 – February 27, 1993), was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987. She was a prominent film star of the 1910s and 1920s, particularly associated with the films of director D.W. Griffith, including her leading role in Griffith's seminal Birth of a Nation (1915).

  

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Tōru Takemitsu (武満 徹 Takemitsu Tōru?, October 8, 1930 – February 20, 1996) was a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Though largely self-taught, Takemitsu is recognised for his skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre, drawing from a wide range of influences, including jazz, popular music, avant-garde procedures and traditional Japanese music, in a harmonic idiom largely derived from the music of Claude Debussy and Olivier Messiaen. In 1958, the international attention he drew with his Requiem for strings (1957) resulted in several commissions from across the world, and settled his reputation as the leading Japanese composer of the 20th century. He was the recipient of numerous awards, commissions and honours, and as well as his many concert works, he composed over one hundred film scores and about one hundred and thirty concert works for ensembles of various sizes and combinations. He also found time to write a detective novel, and appeared frequently on Japanese television as a celebrity chef. In the foreword to a selection of Takemitsu's writings in English, conductor Seiji Ozawa commented: "I am very proud of my friend Tōru Takemitsu. He is the first Japanese composer to write for a world audience and achieve international recognition."

  

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Ingmar Bergman
I don't want to produce a work of art that the public can sit and suck aesthetically ... I want to give them a blow in the small of the back, to scorch their indifference, to startle them out of their complacency.
  

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Featured articles: 35 mm film • Padmé Amidala • James T. Aubrey, Jr. • B movie • Kroger Babb • Eric Bana • Blackface • Blade Runner • The Boondock Saints • Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan • Casablanca (film) • Bette Davis • Dog Day Afternoon • Karen Dotrice • Felix the Cat • Henry Fonda • Fritz the Cat (film) • Gremlins • Gremlins 2: The New Batch • Jake Gyllenhaal • Anthony Michael Hall • Halloween (1978 film) • Halloween II • Halloween III: Season of the Witch • Jabba the Hutt • Jaws (film) • Katie Holmes • Hong Kong action cinema • Angelina Jolie • Diane Keaton • Abbas Kiarostami • Kinetoscope • Lage Raho Munna Bhai • Latter Days • Vivien Leigh • Lindsay Lohan • The Lord of the Rings (1978 film) • Manos: The Hands of Fate • Mom and Dad • Cillian Murphy • Sydney Newman • Austin Nichols • Night of the Living Dead • November (film) • Our Gang • Palpatine • Panavision • Ran (film) • Satyajit Ray • Richard III (1955 film) • Sound film • Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace • Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones • Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith • Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope • Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back • KaDee Strickland • Summer of '42 • Sunset Boulevard (1950 film) • Sharon Tate • Tenebrae (film) • Trembling Before G-d • Triumph of the Will • V for Vendetta (film) • Witchfinder General (film) • Preity Zinta

Featured lists: BAFTA Award for Best Film • Golden Globe Award for Best Director - Motion Picture • Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama • Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score • List of Academy Award winners and nominees for Best Foreign Language Film • List of Harry Potter films cast members • List of films that received the Golden Film

Featured topics: Star Wars episodes

Featured pictures:

Buster Keaton by Bain News Service

"Phenakistoscope: A Couple Waltzing", by Eadweard Muybridge
  

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Film

Terms - Animation • Beta movement • Camera • Cult film • Digital cinema • Documentary film • Dubbing • Experimental film • Fan film • Film crew • Film criticism • Film festival • Film frame • Film genre • Film journals and magazines • Film industry • Film manifesto • Film stock • Film theory • Filmmaking • History of film • Independent film • Lost film • Movie star • Narrative film • Open content film • Persistence of vision • Photographic film • Propaganda • Recording medium • Special effect • Subtitles • Sound stage • Web film • World cinema

Lists - List of basic film topics • List of film topics • List of films • List of film festivals • List of film formats • List of film series • List of film techniques • List of highest-grossing films • List of longest films by running time • List of songs based on a film or book • List of US box office bombs • Lists of film source material • List of open content films

  

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