Scientific Studies on Rhythm in Film from 1880 to 1960 - Text 1
Early Theories of Cinematic Rhythm
When cinematography emerged at the end of the nineteenth century, the question of rhythm had already begun to attract widespread interest. Reflections on the subject arose in an effort to explain the processes of industrialization of the period and the proliferation of new media technologies. Cinema was therefore intriguing both as a new medium and as a tool for studying rhythm itself.
Its origins, often attributed in part to the inventions of Étienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge, stem precisely from a growing intellectual interest in rhythm. Zoopraxography (an invention developed by Muybridge in 1879) and chronophotography (conceived by Marey in 1889) were both, at that time, intended to explain and illustrate the movement of living beings through the photographic and temporal decomposition of their motions. Researchers were therefore interested in the regularity of movement and, by extension, placed cadence at the center of their scientific inquiries when adopting these photographic methods.