William K.L. Dickson

Monday

Jan182010

William Kennedy Laurie Dickson

1860-1935 | Empire of the French

Producer | Director | Actor | Cinematographer | Instrumentalist

Born in France of Anglo-Scottish descent, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson can easily be considered the most important individual in the history of motion pictures. His pivotal role in the development of the craft can be exemplified by just a few achievements: he made the first camera to record moving images that went into industrial production, he decided that the film strip should be 35mm wide, he invented the predecessor to both cinema projection and television and he made the first attempt at introducing sound in film more than thirty years before to the first talkie.

Beyond the technological impact, Dickson should also be commended for his directorial vision. Once film-making has lost its novelty and became a mere consumer product, he was quick to understand that film should be both commercial and meaningful. From the early Dickson Greeting (1891) to Souvenir Strip of the Edison Kinetoscope (1894) and literary adaptations such as King John (1899), Dickson has proved that action can sit at the core of the film image only if it is integrated into a context that is actual. The celebrities of the time appeared in front of the camera with the demeanour that the public expected from them. He understood that the role of a documentary film maker is to capture exactly that through choosing the right setting, light, and most importantly the right subject matter.

Dickson was also central to establishing the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, the studio that was to create in the United States the nucleus for artistic cinematic output. Griffith, Pickford, Gish, Sennet – all of them made their artistic debut with Biograph, but most importantly they all contributed to some of the most important works of the silent cinema.

Dickson’s vision that film should be first of all actual through emotional connection defined the very essence of cinema as we know it – entertainment for the mind. Through investing in projects that respected the public’s cognitive abilities, he has allowed cinema to compete with the established art forms. In retrospect, that vision has paved the rise of film as the most important and most demanded of all arts.