The popularity of animated films in the silent era was peaking in the early 1920s. During this time, admittedly, cartoons served a limited function: “Most of the films were short, five to ten minutes, and were produced to ‘warm-up’ audiences” (Zipes, “Enchanted” 26). Shown before the main feature, the cartoon film of the silent era was never central to the moviegoing experience. Several veteran animators later recalled that these films were “more or less considered fillers; whether they were shown or not was of no major consequence to the audience” (Bendazzi 53). Animator Dick Huemer reminisces, “I don’t think the audiences noticed them. In general, I think, they were still faintly hostile to the cartoons” (Peary 33).

In To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf evocatively described the eponymous structure, based on craggy Godrevy Lighthouse in Cornwall, as a “silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye that opened suddenly and softly in the evening” (Woolf 202). Lighthouses have long inspired writers and filmmakers, and these iconic structures have entered the collective consciousness as potent symbols of isolation, protection and guidance. During the Second World War, lighthouse iconography predominated in four British films - The Seventh Survivor (1941), Tower of Terror (1941), Back-Room Boy (1942) and Thunder Rock (1942) - as an expression of the societal anxieties and aspirations of an embattled Great Britain.

Lexique Terminologique Cinématographique

A comprehensive glossary of common phrases and terminology used on French language film and TV productions.

Un lexique exhaustif en anglais de la terminologie liée à l'industrie cinématographique et télévisuelle.