Themes > Arts > Photography > Timeline of Photography > 1950 - 1959
1950 Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard with Gloria Swanson and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve starring Bette Davis, are the first of a series of films critical of Hollywood mythology.
Kodak introduces a new multilayered film stock in which emulsions sensitive to red, green, and blue are bonded together on a single roll. Patented as Eastmancolor.
Dryden Theatre is built as part of museum complex, made possible by George Eastman’s niece Ellen Dryden and her husband George Dryden.
1950-53 Also in History: Korean War
1950s Revival of the Western and the movie musical. Historical epics and science-fiction films represent the myths and fears of modern America.
Dramatic rise in independent production marks the dwindling power of the Hollywood studio system.
One-quarter of the total American box-office income comes from drive-in theaters.
European nations enter into bilateral coproduction agreements to increase access to international markets, spread out financial risks, and produce big-budget films to compete with Hollywood.
American photographers Irving Penn and Richard Avedon become known for their work in advertising and fashion photography.
1951 The second round of HUAC hearings requires witnesses to "name names" of others they know to be members of the Communist Party or face unemployment through an industry "blacklist," which would remain in effect for more than a decade.
Akira Kurosawa's award-winning Rashomon focuses world attention on
Japanese cinema.
Founding of Cahiers du cinéma, an influential Parisian journal notable for its politique des auteurs, or celebration of the film director as author and source of meaning.
After decades of research, acetate film stock is developed and becomes the industry standard, replacing unstable and highly flammable cellulose
nitrate.
The Berlin International Festival is launched.
Aaron Siskind's photograph New York 2, demonstrates a trend toward abstraction.
W. Eugene Smith’s photo essay, Spanish Village
The first Dryden Theatre series is devoted to "The Transition From Silence to Sound."
1952 Vittorio De Sica's Umberto D causes controversy in Italy for centering on the plight of the nation's aged and urban poor.
Luis Garcia Berlanga's Welcome, Mr. Marshall!, Spain's first official entry at the Cannes Film Festival, satirizes America's expanding power.
The US Supreme Court declares that films are protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech.
Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen's Singin' in the Rain, a peak in the movie musical form.
Norman McLaren's animated short Neighbours develops pixillation technique.
Fred Waller premieres his three-screen, three-projector widescreen process with This Is Cinerama.
1953 The success of Arch Oboler's independent production Bwana Devil, made with a polarized 3-D process requiring special lenses and glasses, spawns a brief craze for 3-D films.
Teinosuke Kinugasa's Gate of Hell, Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu Monogatari, and Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story bring international acclaim to Japanese cinema.
Jacques Tati introduces his enduring comic persona in Mr. Hulot's Holiday.
Henry Koster's The Robe, the first CinemaScope film, premieres at the Palace Theatre in Rochester. The next half-decade will witness a host of competing widescreen technologies.
1953-58 Stalin's death and Krushchev's policy of de-Stalinization create a "thaw" within many eastern European countries, bringing a cultural renaissance and innovative new ideas to cinemas of the Soviet bloc.
1954 Eastman Kodak introduces high speed black-and-white Tri-X film.
Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, is a complex murder mystery starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly.
Federico Fellini's La Strada sets the stage for the next decade of European art cinema addressing the "human condition".
Launching of film festivals in San Sebastian, Sydney, Tokyo.
Ampex markets first commercial video tape recorder.
1955 Bengali Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, is the first of his famous Apu Trilogy.
After only three major film roles, James Dean dies in a car crash just before gaining major stardom.
Edward Steichen organizes The Family of Man, one of the most popular exhibitions of photographs ever presented.
Kukla, Fran and Ollie begin color television broadcast.
First all-color television series, Howdy Doody begins.
1955-58 Major Hollywood studios enter into "telefilm" series production and sell or lease their pre-1948 feature films to TV syndicators.
1956 John Ford's The Searchers, an influential John Wayne Western.
Roger Vadim's And God Created Woman launches Brigitte Bardot as the female sexual myth of 1950s.
Foundation of the Zagreb studio in Yugoslavia, whose animation unit will attract international attention for its lyrical, highly stylized cartoons.
First television program broadcast from tape - Douglas Edwards and The News.
Leica M3 introduced.
1957 Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries establish him as the world's preeminent filmmaker.
Terence Fisher's The Curse of Frankenstein, first of Hammer Films's long-running horror series starring Christopher Lee and/or Peter Cushing.
Launching of film festivals in London and San Francisco.
Also in History: Sputnik, the first satellite, is launched.
1958 Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds completes his trilogy on war and resistance in Poland.
Orson Welles's Touch of Evil marks the end of the American film noir cycle.
Gilles Groulx's Les Raquetteurs, shot at the annual congress of the snowshoes clubs with the camera as participant, soon becomes a
manifesto for Québécois filmmaking.
1958-63 Documentary film practice is transformed by the introduction of lightweight 16mm professional cameras and portable tape recorders utilizing the Pilitone system to synchronize soundtrack to image track during shooting. The new documentary, called "uncontrolled," "observational," or Direct Cinema in the United States and Canada, cinéma verité in France, seeks to study individuals and situations on a moment-by-moment basis.
1959 Alain Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour and François Truffaut's The 400 Blows win at Cannes and confer international prestige to a growing young French film movement, la nouvelle vague.
The portable Nagra tape recorder is developed by Swiss inventor Stefan Kudelski.
Launching of film festivals in Barcelona and Moscow.
Robert Frank’s The Americans is a controversial and ironic commentary on the emptiness of modern America.
Nikon F is introduced.
Bob Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor, U.S., prints an entire electronic circuit on a single crystal or microchip of silicon using a photographic process. This breakthrough enables the computer revolution to begin.


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