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A History of Three-Dimensional Cinema chronicles 3-D cinema as a single, continuous and coherent medium, proceeding from 19th-century experiments in stereoscopic photography and lantern projection (1839–1892) to stereoscopic cinema’s “long novelty period” (1893–1952). It proceeds to examine the first Hollywood boom in anaglyphic stereo (1953–1955), when the mainstream industry produced 69 features in 3-D, mostly action films that could exploit the depth illusion, but also a handful of big-budget films—for example, Kiss Me Kate (George Sidney, 1953) and Dial M for Murder (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)—until audiences tired of the process; the anaglyphic revival of 1970–1985, when 3-D was sustained as a novelty feature in sensational genres like soft-core pornography and horror; the age of IMAX 3-D (1986–2008); the current era of digital 3-D cinema, which began in 2009 when James Cameron’s Avatar became the highest-grossing feature of all time and the studios once again stampeded into 3-D production; and finally the future promise of Virtual Reality.
“An invaluable contribution to the field—a concise, comprehensive and insightful account of ‘stereoscopic cinema,’ from its conception in the nineteenth century to its most recent boom in the wake of Avatar. And Cook doesn’t stop there, charting the course of 3D beyond the screen and into the immersive experience of virtual reality, where the next boom awaits.” — Thomas Schatz, Professor, the University of Texas at Austin, US
List of Figures; Acknowledgements; Prefatory Note/ Introduction; 1. “A New Way to Simulate Presence”: The Foundations of Stereoscopic Entertainment, 1427– 1888; 2. “A Very Vivid Impression of Movement”: Early 3D Cinema, 1895–1952; 3. “See It in 3 Dimension!”: The First Hollywood 3D Boom, 1952–55; 4. Stereoscopic Revival, 1970–85; 5. The Age of IMAX, or the “Immersive Cinema,” 1986–2009; 6. The Blockbuster Years: Digital 3D, 2010–20; 7. “A Diff erent Kind of Mental Image”: Some Aesthetic Considerations about 3D; 8. “Experience on Demand”: Virtual Reality; 9. Conclusion; 3D Discography: Discs Viewed or Sampled in Preparation for This Book; Selected Bibliography; Index.