This anthology assembles some of the earliest Czech texts on film published in the period between 1908 and 1939, i.e., between the rise of art cinema and the outbreak of World War II, writings that were instrumental in shaping the various ways film was seen and understood in this formative period. The authors include scientist Jan Evangelista Purkinje, whose studies of the perception of movement from 1819 and 1820 laid the foundation for the rise of the cinematic apparatus, and writers and critics Vaclav Tille and Karel Capek, who, years before their counterparts abroad, analyzed cinematic language as it was emerging, reflecting on its geneology, genres, and future development.
