Themes > Arts > Photography > Timeline of Photography > 1920 - 1929
1920 Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a foundation work of German Expression.
Lev Kuleshov's Soviet State Film School workshop conducts experiments on film space and time.
Formation of Shochiku studio in Japan.
Also in History: In the US, women are allowed to vote for the first time.
1920s Murder trial of film comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, murder of director William Desmond Taylor, and drug-addicted death of Wallace Reid are part of a cycle of scandals that increase public demands for greater industry regulation.
Soviet cinema is influential for its strategies of montage, graphic approach to the film frame, "biomechanical" acting, and political use of the motion picture medium.
French Impressionism is founded, a movement predicated on the belief that cinema is an artform of personal expression.
Soviet silent era filmmaker, Dziga Vertov, now acknowledged as the father of cinema-verite (realistic documentary movement of the 1960s - 70s), produces a series of newsreel-documentaries.
German Tri-Ergon process is developed, whose flywheel mechanism is essential to the continuous reproduction of optical sound.
Edward Steichen becomes chief photographer for the fashion magazines Vogue and Vanity Fair. His well known portraits include the veiled Gloria Swanson, the hands-to-head image of Greta Garbo, and the smiling Charlie Chaplin.
American photographer James Van Der Zee creates memorable portraits of African-Americans.
American artist Man Ray creates the Rayogram, a collage of objects placed onto photographic paper and exposed to light.
1921 First transatlantic telephoto transmission is made between Annapolis, Md., and Belin's laboratories at La Malmaison, Fr.
1922 Will H. Hays, former Postmaster General for President Harding, is appointed head of the newly created Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), a self-regulatory organization comprised of industry leaders.
Founding of the Mingxing Film Company in Shanghai, the center of Chinese film production.
Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North, a point of reference for nonfiction and popular adventure filmmakers to follow.
Successful subtractive process for two-color film introduced by Herbert Kalmus' Technicolor Corporation. Uses a special camera and procedure to produce two separate positive prints that are then cemented together into a single print. Used in films: Toll of the Sea (1922) and Douglas Fairbank's The Black Pirate (1926).
1923 Kodak introduces 16mm movie film for amateur use.
Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments and James Cruze's The Covered Wagon, are examples of silent era big-budget filmmaking.
Pola Negri and Ernst Lubitsch are wooed by American studios following the success of Madame Dubarry; starting a regular flow of European talent to Hollywood.
Vladimir Zworykin patents television picture tube.
First radio network is established by AT&T.
1924 Erich von Stroheim's naturalistic epic Greed is mutilated by studio interference.
F. W. Murnau's The Last Laugh, notable for its innovative use of camera movement, subjective point-of-view shots, and optical effects.
1924-25 Ernst Leitz designs and markets the 35mm Leica cameras.
1925 Sergei Eisenstein's Potemkin, a powerful film retelling of the 1905 Russian Revolution.
Western Electric, the manufacturing subsidiary of AT&T, perfects a sound-on-disc system called Vitaphone.
"Little cinema" movement begins with the establishment of the Screen Guild in New York, a group dedicated to screening experimental works and films of historical and aesthetic significance.
RCA patented sound-on-film system RCA Photophone.
László Moholy-Nagy's Painting Photography Film. Experiments with photograms.
1926 George Eastman travels on his first safari to Africa to collect specimens for the American Museum of Natural History with big game hunters Martin and Osa Johnson.
Fritz Lang's Metropolis, a triumph of production design.
Following the completion of Son of the Sheik, Rudolph Valentino dies at 31 and is mourned by millions.
Warner Bros. debuts Vitaphone to the public with a series of demonstration shorts and the feature film Don Juan.
William Fox responds to Warners' success with Movietone, the first commercially successful sound-on-film process developed in conjunction with General Electric.
1927 Abel Gance's Napoléon is partially filmed in Polyvision and utilizes triptych sequences to produce wide and multiscreen effects.
Walter Ruttmann's Berlin: Symphony of a City captures the kaleidoscopic movements of urban life.
Box office success of The Jazz Singer sets film industries worldwide on the course of sound film production.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded by industry leaders in response to mounting labor unrest in Hollywood.
The Production Code of America, a self-regulatory code of ethics setting forth standards of good taste and specific "Don'ts and Be Carefuls," is created by the MPPDA under Will H. Hays.
First Laurel and Hardy film Leave 'Em Laughing.
Also in History: Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic.
General Electric invents the modern flashbulb.
Bell Laboratories perform the first mechanical television transmission in United States.
1928 Kodak introduces 16mm lenticular KODACOLOR Film for making motion pictures in color.
Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie, starring Mickey Mouse, the first animated cartoon designed for synchronized sound.
Technicolor introduces an imbibition or dye-transfer process for two-color films.
RCA enters into film production by forming RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) and Warner Bros. takes over First National Pictures. Along with 20th Century-Fox, they join Loews and Paramount to form the "big five," an oligopoly that controls the American film industry for the next 30 years.
Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, is shot in France with massive technical and financial resources.
1929 The Academy Awards are presented for the first time, with the Best Picture honor going to Wings.
Motion picture cameras are standardized to run at a speed of 24 frames per second to ensure consistent sound synchronization.
Postsynchronization is used by King Vidor in Hallelujah.
Dziga Vertov's The Man with a Movie Camera, is a film essay on the vicissitudes of perceptual reality.
Also in History: The N.Y. stock market crash begins the Depression.
Film and Foto exhibition that synthesized modernism in photography is held in Stuttgart.


Information provided by George Eastman House: http://www.eastman.org