Тhis year we are celebrating the hundredth anniversary of cinematography. A century ago the Lumiere brothers made their first three-minute films which were demon­strated to the public on the 28th of December, 1895. Since then a new era has begun — the era of cinematography. It rapidly spread all over the world and very soon turned into one of the most popular arts and entertain­ments. The twentieth century may rightfully be called the century of cinematography. For a long time there have been disputes whether the cinema is an art or just an enter-tainment. Nowadays the cinema is considered one of the main contemporary arts. The cinema combines such arts as painting, literature, theatre, architecture, music. That's why a lot of people of different professions are involved in film production: scriptwriters, directors, cameramen, costume designers, composers, actors and actresses and many others. Pioneers of the Russian cinema are Protazanov, Gardin, Bauer and later Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Dovzhenko. The first films in the West were mainly melodramas or comedies, in Russia they very often were historical films or screen versions of the best novels. At the time when films were silent and black-and-white the world was crazy about.
Charlie. He was created and performed by the famous English actor and film director.
Charles Spencer Chaplin. His Charlie, small and clumsy yet kind-hearted, generous and brave, has attracted the hearts of simple people in different countries. Sometimes they
would stand in long queues to see a film with their favourite actor. Later sound and col­ our were introduced into films. The cinema was of great importance during the two World Wars. The best camera­men went to the fronts to make documentary films about heroism of the soldiers. Feature films of that time helped people to survive the hardships of war. Films are demonstrated in cinemas. There are a lot of them in Moscow. Each district has at least one cinema. In the programme there is a feature film preceded by cither a newsreel, a documentary or an animated cartoon. There are intervals between pro­grammes and each programme begins at a definite time. In most cinemas in Western countries there are no intervals between programmes and people can stay in the cinema as long as they like. Not so long ago people went to cinemas frequently but now we prefer to stay at home and watch video films and TV. Maybe cinemas are no longer as popular as they used to be but films will always be one of the best entertainments for people all over the world.