Cinema of attraction
From around 1907 to 1913, film makers were seeking to make distinctive images that went beyond everyday life representations. Their curiosity brought on the concept of “cinema of attraction”, a term coined by the film researcher Tom Gunning. These films draw viewers to focus on the animation and thrill of the images as if watching theatre play or being at a circus instead on the narrative.
This dataset from Filmoteca de Catalunya explores this concept with the works of Segundo de Chomón (1871 – 1929). He was a pioneering Spanish film director, cinematographer and screenwriter. Due to his repeated camera tricks and visual fallacies he has been compared to the French illusionist and film director Georges Méliès and was regarded as the most significant Spanish silent film director at the time.