Cinema has undergone significant development since its inception in the nineteenth century. In the past two centuries and beyond, technological progress and innovative experimentation have been prevalent. Each successive film movement as well as filmmaking technique contributed to the development of the art form we adore today. A comprehensive understanding of films necessitates an understanding of cinema, and an appreciation for cinema requires an acknowledgment that, unlike any other art form, it has consistently been influenced by external forces, primarily due to its immense popularity. Furthermore, cinema possesses the capacity to shape history in its own right. While it is not advisable to write histories of literature and music as straightforward biographies of authors and their works, omitting any discussion of printing and recording technologies, the industries that utilize them, or the contemporary world where artists and their audiences operated, is possible but not recommended. Cinema renders this task unattainable. Placing films within their proper context is fundamental to the endeavor of this book; without it, they would be devoid of existence, much less significance. This entails acknowledging that while demands of industry and art in the film industry may not always coincide, they are not inherently contradictory. Instead, it is the case that they lack proportionality. Cinema, as an industrial art form, has evolved to incorporate industrialized methods of art production. Nevertheless, this is a fact that has proven to be exceedingly challenging for traditional aesthetics to accept. Conversely, numerous films exist that establish an artistic value that contradicts the principles of the industry upon which their production hinged. Moreover, there are numerous instances where the artistic merit of a given film is, to put it mildly, questionable.