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Read The Art of Storytelling (Part 1): How Movies Have Revolutionized Performance Art.
The Turning of the Tides
By the 1920s, motion pictures were taking America by storm. Movie stars were just that, and the modern celebrity was born. The great American novel became an underground art, and the theatre and opera were reserved for high society. With this new medium, filmmakers began looking for new stories to tell, ultimately turning to books for inspiration. The first film adaptation came in 1924 with Erich Von Stroheim’s Greed, a literal adaptation of Frank Morris’s novel, McTeague. Due to Von Stroheim’s meticulous nature, the resulting film was an overwhelming 16 hours. When it was finally cut down to two hours, the result was an incoherent nightmare. The processes of adapting novels and plays began to grow as an art, ultimately leading to screenwriters consistently looking to adapt both books and theatre for the big screen. This of course, includes television, but that's another story.
Roots
Since the advent of language, people have been creating their own venues in order to tell their stories, whether the stories have a specific purpose or are strictly for entertainment value. Every ancient civilization has their legends, myths, and stories, just as every culture has their renowned storytellers. Primarily, storytelling was conducted in the oral tradition in combination with expressions and gestures. Another primitive form of storytelling was through art, as seen in cave drawings. In the oral tradition, the storyteller provides the audience with mental images through words, songs, and movements to get his message across. Audience would then, in turn, interpret the story through their own personal experiences. No two stories were ever told in the same manner, nor were the audiences’ interpretations of the story. The experiences of both the storyteller and the audience, and how they interact are what make storytelling special. Storytelling is, indeed, the first true art form.
