How far back would one have to go? To Leonardo's camera obscura that projected images? To the shadow plays of Scrates, Plato and Aristotle's time? According to Jacob Bronowski, you would have to go back to the cave people.
Investigating the cave people, the first thing Bronowski discovered was that "Cave man" is a misnomer. The cave people actually had camps Bronowski excavated outside of the caves. Then why paint pictures of Ice Age creatures on the walls of the caves?
In looking around at the walls during his investigation, Bronowski discovered something curious in the ceiling. There was a thick layer of tallow. Why? He had the men helping him construct a makeshift torch and turn off all of their lights. Then they saw it: the first films. The torch turned the cave pictures into looming, flickering images.
On the spot, Bronowski developed a theory: the cave people were painting the pictures and then coming back into the caves with torches (and maybe even their spears and a few chants) to face their fears. A few choruses of "Kill the Mammoth" may have made them brave enough to go out and get meat for a month.
Could part of the attraction of film today be that it helps us to face our fears? Watching James Bond drive that car may give us the ability to go out and face our crazy roadways. Aristotle would agree. He claimed that seeing kings fall from great heights made the problems of us commoners not seem so great. In any case, we can see where film is probably as old as humanity's handle on fire.
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